I have a vision, where all peoples are free,
and dance to the music so joyfully.
Where all the nations, all join hands,
and march together to to peace-time bands.

No more must our youth lay in regimental rows,
on foreighn soil where green grass grows.
No more must government actions made in haste,
destroy our world “The human race”.

In the past, alas! I have played a warlike part,
now these my thoughts, come from the hart.
Oh! to forever, dance to a happy band,
with a smiling stranger in each hand.

Bob Raybould, ‘Veteran’, 26th September 1996.

(The poem was written after Robert Raybould left the CWZ hospital at Nijmegen after he was struck by a heart attack)

Robert Raybould at the CWZ hospital at Nijmegen

To my friends The Been’s (pdf)