This is hardly suggesting the narrators view was the prevailing view of his comrades - even years after the event.

The song is not aimed at comrades, rather the captive folk audience who find such sentiments deeply moving. Personally I find manipulative, and cynical. A cheap trick if ever there was one. Same with the other one about Willie McBride. Whenever such songs are sung, I head for the bar and hope there's no one in earshot of the singer who's ever lost any one in wars old and new. It happened once in my experience, during the Falklands, when a solfier's wife out with her roudy mates took exception to the anti-war righteousness of the folkies - and rightly so. Was life ever so simple?