Lest We Forget
Today is both Armistice Day (the 89th anniversary of the armistice which ended the fighting in the First World War) and Remembrance Sunday.
I find as I grow older that the annual commemoration of those who were killed in the two great wars of the 20th century and all the other wars since grows more, not less, poignant.
My grandfather was one of the lucky ones who went off to serve in the Great War and came back. His brother, Robert Whiteside, who served with the Lancashire Fusiliers, was less fortunate. He was killed on 1st October 1918, just six weeks before the end of the war, aged 18.
So at 11 am this morning I will think of my great-uncle Robert and all the millions of other men and women who have been killed in war, and of those who were mained, widowed, or orphaned.
I am not, and never will be, a pacifist. Hitler's belief that Britain and France no longer had the will to fight was one of the contributory factors which led to the second world war a generation later. But there are two reasons why we should always remember the sacrificies of those who died for our country.
The first is that we owe them so much, and perhaps we will value more what they fought for - for instance, democracy and the rule of law - if we remember the price in lives and treasure which our country has paid to keep those things. And secondly, if we remember the human cost of war we are likely to have fewer people killed in future ones.
I find as I grow older that the annual commemoration of those who were killed in the two great wars of the 20th century and all the other wars since grows more, not less, poignant.
My grandfather was one of the lucky ones who went off to serve in the Great War and came back. His brother, Robert Whiteside, who served with the Lancashire Fusiliers, was less fortunate. He was killed on 1st October 1918, just six weeks before the end of the war, aged 18.
So at 11 am this morning I will think of my great-uncle Robert and all the millions of other men and women who have been killed in war, and of those who were mained, widowed, or orphaned.
I am not, and never will be, a pacifist. Hitler's belief that Britain and France no longer had the will to fight was one of the contributory factors which led to the second world war a generation later. But there are two reasons why we should always remember the sacrificies of those who died for our country.
The first is that we owe them so much, and perhaps we will value more what they fought for - for instance, democracy and the rule of law - if we remember the price in lives and treasure which our country has paid to keep those things. And secondly, if we remember the human cost of war we are likely to have fewer people killed in future ones.
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