FUBAR

They are all of them FUBAR
who cross this river, not knowing that it is a Styx
or a Lethe for they have forgotten.
The briefing told them:
"Advance to the river bank,
dig in,"
but there is something cowardly and against their warrior-ethos
in digging in the dirt like dogs,
and so instead they advance on the citadel,
its black and oily war-smoke rising up like a banner
above the battle-plain.
Underfoot crunch the bones
of those long-dead warriors
who fought here long before they died,
the marrow sucked out in great slurpings and gnawings
until nothing is left but the brittle remainder
of a warrior who almost never-was,
who is FUBAR too.