`...If you look at a lot of that poetry - be it WWI or WWII - the message is literally `play the game and you can't lose' (there's one particular one whose name escapes me which compares war with a game of cricket)...' I wish Camille could tell us who this versifier was. Was he a relative of Don Bradman's ? Certainly the English poets of either of the two wars - from Owen & Grenfell of the first to Douglas & Keys of the second - led the way in showing war as it actually is through the disillusioned eyes of men who had personally experienced its brutality. I can't speak for America or Australia where the immediate reality of war rarely impinged on civilian life. But I can for Britain where I lived as a boy & young teenager throughout these years. Believe me, while there was a great deal of intense patriotism there was very little inclination or opportunity to view the war as a surrogate for sport. Scottie B.