You have seen broken, burning men

pulled from broken burning planes.

You have watched as bombers turn into fiery, flaming torches,

Lighting up the night, falling, falling, falling,

full of your friends,

so frightening.

You have seen the wrecked corpses

in wrecked machines.

You have prayed as a dozen searchlights catch you naked in their beam

as the flak creeps closer,

as hot metal shards ping and rattle on your deadly cage.

You have sweated as an engine cuts out,

as the pilot corkscrews away

from a ravenous, death-spitting night-fighter,

whose cannon shells burst the fuselage around you.

You have hidden the vomit, urine and tears

from the others, your brothers.

In the morning at breakfast,

you have counted the empty places,

and remembered the missing faces.

And today they say you have LMF.

Lack of moral fibre.

But what do they know?

Really, what do they know?