The very first thing we notice about this poem is of course the title. The words "Base Details" could be taken to be talking about an actual army base. On the other hand they could be taking another meaning of the word "base", which is dishonourable, and thus getting the title, dishonourable details, which is very much in line with the tone of this poem, which is unyielding, right from the very beginning.

This of course only heightens the impact of the first line.

"If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath," line 1

There, in that first, single line, Sassoon destroys any preconceptions we might have had about tall handsome

Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel," Lines 4-5

In the very last lines Sassoon displays to us the worst injustice of it all. Perhaps it would have been softer on the reader to have thought these officers would get their just rewards, be killed in a bombing, or fatally wounded in a car crash. No, instead they totter off home, quite the happy gentlemen, to die, peacefully in their sleep.

In the next two lines, the Majors are yet again in the lap of comfort, far away from enemy lines.

"And when the war is done and youth stone dead,

The next group of lines is equally disgusting, if not more so, although in a slightly different sense.

These men clearly are not interested in the war, in the lives of the men they command. The way alliteration draws our eyes to the words "guzzling and gulping" implies that guzzling and gulping is something the Majors pay more attention to as well, greedily gobbling down food and drink as fast as they can, showing no table manners at all. If Sassoon was trying to disgust the reader with the image, he certainly succeeded with me.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Roll Honour, Majors Short, Fodder Majors, World War, Base Details, Word Count, Siegfried Sassoon, guzzling gulping, army base, world war, section poem, base details, front line,
Approximate Word count = 920
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)