Parts first posted in November 2019.
Usually, around this time of year, I see a bunch of posts, profile decorations, photos about Remembrance day with Union Jacks and St George’s crosses. Actually, this year it’s been a bit less I think. Maybe, with Brexit and COVID there’s a realisation that we rely and owe a debt of gratitude to non-British contributions to our world.
Remembrance is about taking time to consider the sacrifices made during war. Primarily we think of the armed forces and those who died, but also those civilians who worked hard to protect their society and those who returned affected by their experiences.
We do NOT only think of English soldiers. We do NOT only think of British forces. We do NOT only think of World War II.
We remember the sacrifices made by people of all nations in all wars. Not just one poppy, millions.
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.
The Polish fighter pilots, the Turkish naval officers, the German soldiers in the trenches, the Afghan forces working now to protect their society, and many more.
When Remembrance day gets turned into a nationalistic celebration of a victory 75 years old, we forget that it was won through cooperation and joint efforts. Worse, we ignore those who live among us today, struggling with the effects of having served in combat.
So instead of posting a Union Jack or English cross, use a poppy and support Help for Heroes instead.
Smelly Socks and Garden Peas 
Definitely been quieter here around it, largely because he’s at secondary school now, and it’s meant there wasn’t the usual poppy selling and lessons about remembrance day
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You make a really powerful point here. It was all about collaboration.
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Some people can be perceived and treated by a large swath of an otherwise free, democratic and relatively civilized society as though those people are somehow disposable and, by extension, their suffering is somehow less worthy of external concern.
Albeit perhaps on a subconscious level, there also is an inhumane devaluation by external-nation [usually of the Western world] attitudes toward the daily civilian lives lost in devastatingly long-drawn-out war zones and famine-stricken nations. The worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the protracted conditions under which it suffers.
Often enough, those people will eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page of the First World’s daily news.
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Thanks so much for your thoughtful and deep reply. I absolutely agree.
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A month before my 18th birthday (in 1969) I joined the US Army. I spent 1970 in Vietnam. I was discharged in 1972, which was 50 years ago. Recently I reflected on how, when I signed up, those who had already been discharged 50 years ago were veterans of the Great War. That seemed really ancient to the young recruit that I was. I imagine that now, those who sign up with whatever armed force of whatever nation on whatever side of whatever conflict, imagine guys like me to be as ancient as the Great War veterans seemed to me in 1969.
It’s a bitch getting old, but I regret very few days or years of the process.
Peace, everyone. Peace.
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I was really pleased that a youngish veteran (40s) went to speak to large boy’s scout group last week. So they got to meet someone who served but is of an age with their parents, I think it made it all more real for them.
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