It seems to be stated as if it were a strong song to attract young people to fight• The diction used is very encouraging and strong with words like "integrity" (line 17) and "glory" (line 16). These are propaganda words used to encourage young people to come and fight in the war. The newspaper states that the glory will be theirs, those who went to war, even if they died• Punctuation such as question marks and dashes are used to create pauses and let readers know that Owen is about to mention an important concept . The hyphen and question mark create a mocking tone and then Owen explains and elaborates the point • “Half-limbed” (line 18) describes young men who have already fought in the war and returned without limbs and suffering. They laugh at the word “nation” (line 18) because they already know what war is like. • “They smiled at each other curiously” (line 19) shows how the soldiers however smile with amusement, not with happiness. They think the newspaper quote is a "joke". They can only smile because they have been through hell and now they can't do anything