Comments on: Why We Remember

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:05:03 +0000

I remember reading (can’t remember where now), that major wars only happen when people have forgotten how horrible the previous one was.

Another reason we should never forget.

WW2 was the exception to this, which lends credence to the idea that the two World Wars were really a single war with a 20-year ceasefire in the middle.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:27:30 +0000

My grandfather fought in WWI and was in the Home Guard for WWII.
I can see on our family tree how many relatives failed to return from WWII, and some who did were not the same men who went away – or so their wives said.

Yet for all our attempts to remember just how awful war is, I seem to recall that the UK armed forces have had casualties during armed conflict every year but one since 1945.

We will remember them.

By: ard sloc

ard sloc — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 12:49:13 +0000

I’ve always worn a poppy on Remembrance Sunday. I was a child during WWII and was well aware of what was being reported, although none of my close relatives served in the forces (too old or too young). I vividly remember D Day seeing thousands of aircraft overhead (with the special D Day insignia). A bit later we had a brief holiday in Weymouth, filled with American troops, waiting to be sent to their deaths in France. (The doughnuts they gave out from their portable oven on the sea front were delicious.) I was then also reading books that one of my uncles had as a boy in the 1920s about the experiences of two boys serving as a midshipman (at the Battle of Jutland) and as a motor scout (on the Flanders battlefield). They were good adventure stories, and not particularly vainglorious.

The way Remembrance has changed in recent years, with the realization that there are new wars to chill us with deaths of young men and women, is typified by the televised Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. It used to include lots of items glorifying the power and ingenuity of modern war-making. Last Saturday there was none of that. Pop songs and reminders of recent deaths as well as WW ones, plus some military bands filled the schedule.

“One side had lost, but who had won? ….. The men returned ….they stored the horrors”. Fish’s song by Derek W Dick, say it all really.

By: Sam Lewis

Sam Lewis — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 21:21:01 +0000

I’ve not worn a poppy for ages. I hate how, in a media age, Rememberance Day is now much more about ‘being seen to be doing something for it’ than actually remembering those who have given their lives in war. TV Presenters and Politicians suddenly all start wearing them weeks before the actual day and, for me, this takes away from the spirit of the day. It always seems like a cynical acts to further their own reputation. I agree about Fish’s songs though. They are truely excellent are one of the few things about rememberance/WWI that I feel is genuine.