The Trenches: Life In

Martin Benfey, MD

Can J Rural Med 1996; 1 (2): 92


Sure the Front can be pleasant; when all is quiet.
You may chat and smoke but rather wish,
You were at home with your wife, your children.
Gardening, perhaps, on such a fine sunny day.
Screaming, without warning, the shelling starts.
Again.
Instead of heeding the impulse to flee, AWOL,
You press forward to heal the wounded.
When suddenly overwhelmed.
In the deepest shit with the sickening sensation,
Of sinking.

With a silent gasp reinforcements are called,
And together the team works.
Comrades in arms.
And now this day is done, and a small battle won,
Your colleagues nod and say "good job."
Happy that, today, not they but you were the one.
In the line of fire.
Later, instead of a medal the government refuses pay,
Insisting: "Justify your action." Justify your presence.
"Give us the code." They say.
(What code to save a life?)
And to think that you volunteered to serve,
In the trenches.

© 1996 Society of Rural Physicians of Canada

Elke Bzdurreck-Benfey


Table of contents: Can J Rural Med vol 1 (2)