The irony in the poem Dulce it Decorum Est is that it is not sweet and fitting to die for one’s country when you have actually experienced war. Owen is describing how psychologically and physically exhausting W.W.I was for the soldiers that had to endure such a cruel ordeal and not how patriotic and honorable it was . In the first stanza Owen describes how the soldiers are trudging back to camp from battle. We see the soldiers, fatigued and wounded, returning to base camp: Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we