The Story of the Soldier and His Bride

What is it that remains upon the sands,
Once time and vicious water have encroached
Upon these war-zone, ocean-leveled lands,
And every gaudy shell has since been poached?
The smallest pebble on the beach lay there.
Two lovers stood, with heads both gravely bent. 
One brushed aside his lover's wind-blown hair
And offered her that tiny ornament. 
One morsel of the sea and nothing more,
The story of the Soldier and his Bride--
Their lives played out a thousand times before,
But to whose hist'ry, those young fools were blind. 
    When warlords clash in white-capped, baneful waves,
    It's pebbles left behind in shallow graves.