Good lord - of course --- read that years ago; I guess I assumed Heinlein
got it from a real army. Thanks!!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 8:45 AM
Subject: Re: 3 poems
> Ooops -- that got away quicker than I intended.
>
> According to google, the only place it's called "Dirge for the Unmourned"
> is
> in Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_.
>
> Robin
>
> URL for the following quote:
>
>
> http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Britain/Miscellaneous/c_executions.html
>
>> The several corps of the line, at the appointed hour and place, parade
>> three deep, and are prepared to draw up so as to form three sides of a
>> square. The execution parties in divisions, preceded by a band of music,
>> and a corps of drummers, with the provost-marshal on horseback at their
>> head, march in ordinary time at the front of the prisoner. The music
>> plays the dead march in Saul. The guards, formed in divisions, march at
>> the same time in rear of the prisoner. The main-guard, commanded by the
>> captain of the day, leads. The others follow in succession, according to
>> the rank of their regiments.
>
> Kipling's "Danny Deever":
>
>> "What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade.
>> "To turn you out, to turn you out", the Colour-Sergeant said.
>> "What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.
>> "I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said.
>> For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play,
>> The regiment's in 'ollow square -- they're hangin' him to-day;
>> They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,
>> An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Frederick Pollack" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 1:30 PM
>> Subject: Re: 3 poems
>
>>>> It's called the War Requiem. Benjamin Britten wrote the music around
>>>> the poems of Wilfred Owen. Music premiered in 1961 for poems composed
>>>> in 1917-18. Sadly we continue to know what it means.
>>>>
>>>> kw
>>>>
>>> No, no, Ken, I know the piece, but what I was thinking of is an actual
>>> military tattoo, a march-rhythm --- British Army, I thought. Used at
>>> executions mandated by courts-martial.
>
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