Here are a few poems from ancient times.
This poem is by Archilochus, one of the great lyric
poets of any time.
Archilochus was a part-time soldier like most men.
And he didn't dig it.
And I imagine he got fed up one day with the Marine mentality.
And the Greeks had it too, that little
epitaph with the last Macedonian, supreme example.
And he says in one of the-- probably two or three
poems I think that come down to us whole.
And we know him mostly by fragments, sometimes a word
or two, a phrase.
This poem is complete.
"Some Saian mountaineer is strutting today with my shield.
I threw it down behind a bush and ran
when the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
But I know where I can get one exactly like it,
just as round."