In the poem Disabled, what are the present and past attitudes of the disabled soldier?

In the fourth stanza the boy also recalls that he was a football hero, and that once a "blood-smear" on his leg sustained in a game was a badge of honor. This is in stark contrast to his war wounds, which are shameful. He explains the almost casual way he decided to go to war – after a game, when he was drunk, he thought he ought to enlist. Swayed by a compliment and a girl named Meg, his justification for going to war illustrates his youthful ignorance and naïveté is in full effect.