Sir - I'm afraid Thelma Sanders (Letters, November 23) hasn't grasped the message in Wilfred Owen's poetry. The sentiments of his poem Dulce et Decorum Est are quite clearly set out in the final eight lines:

'If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori'.

Nia Williams, Headington