Never Forget

Today we remember and honour our fallen.  At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. All those thousands of lost lives. Today we honour the sacrifice they made in the name of freedom. Tomorrow the solemn ceremonies will be held.

Our family were lucky. Our many relatives who served in the forces all came safely home. My paternal Grandfather and his half-brothers served in the Boer War, before that their ancestors served in earlier conflicts.  My uncles served in the First World War as very young men. One was taken prisoner and made to work in the salt mines. When he returned his hair was totally white. My maternal Grandfather saw some of the bloodiest fighting in the trenches of that war.  Many of  his close friends fell around him. He would never talk of it.  He was badly gassed and eventually invalided home. His two sons served in the Second World War, one in the Tank Regiment and one on the Russian Convoys. My own father saw service and his hearing was affected ever afterward by the noise of the anti-aircraft guns he was firing. My brother served in the Korean War. He saw good friends die and came home a totally changed man. But, as I said, we were lucky,  no knock on the door for our family, no dreaded telegram, our loved ones did return safely home. Some of my school friends lost their fathers.

Armistice Day was first commemorated one year after the First World War ended. The “war to end all wars”. Nobody thought they would ever see carnage on that scale again. Just over a score of years later, the world was once more in turmoil and millions more perished. Since then, somewhere in the world wars or troubles have continued.  It seems that peace is a vain hope, still an unreachable dream.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Tomorrow services of Remembrance will be held at the Cenotaph in Whitehall and in towns and villages all over the United Kingdom.  People will come together to remember.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them

As we honour those who fell in the past, we remember as well that troops are still laying down their lives, in Iraq and Afghanistan. During this year many families have lost dear ones. Husbands, Fathers, Sons, Brothers, Nephews. Young men going off to do their duty, dreaming of the day they would return home, dreaming of their futures, futures that would be snatched from them.  Families left bereft, grief immeasurable.

Let us never forget the debt we that we owe to all those thousands upon thousands of brave men. Let us strive to make the world a better and more tolerant place, to work for a time when we can all live in harmony and peace. Let them not have died in vain.  We salute and honour them and the sacrifice they made.  All gave something, some gave everything. May they rest in peace.

 

"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, 
For Your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"