Lest we forget

At the start of World War II, my father signed up for the Royal Navy even though (a) he was under age and (b) he couldn't swim.  He served with distinction for many years, before being severely wounded in a naval battle in the Mediterranean.  He carried shrapnel inside him for the rest of his days.

At the start of World War II, my father-in-law was an officer in the Polish cavalry.  After his regiment was overrun by the Wehrmacht, he narrowly escaped the slaughter at Katyn forest and undertook a harrowing journey across Europe in search of freedom.  Reaching the UK, he served with the Free Polish forces until the end of the war.

I'm humbled by the thought of what these men, and all who fought in that war, had to endure, and I'm thankful not to have had to face anything similar*.  Even so, I find myself becoming more uncomfortable each year with the growing importance of Remembrance Day/Veterans Day in the English speaking world.  Failing to pay adequate respect to the fallen is becoming one of the most serious secular sins of our age.

A couple of years ago, one or two newsreaders at the BBC were castigated for failing to display a poppy every time they were on air.  My father would have been on their side.  Despite his own service record, he always refused to buy a poppy, believing that the entire Poppy Fund was a conscience-salving scheme by its founder, Earl Haig, who had sent so many men to their deaths in the Great War.  The same pious attitude can be seen here in Canada too.  On Friday evening, the lead story -- the LEAD story -- on one local TV station was that one --ONE -- local high school had cancelled its Remembrance Day service because of a labour dispute.

There's a fine line between remembrance of the fallen, which is right and appropriate, and glorifying war, which is neither.  Veterans in Ontario can now order a special license plate for their vehicles, which renders war almost kitschy, when it's something that should always be looked upon with horror and sadness.  War is still about old men settling their disputes by sending young men** (and increasingly, young women) to face death and mutilation.  The best tribute to the fallen of past wars would be to stop doing that.  It's not a memorial I expect to see any time soon.  

*Can I suggest some reading matter?  "All Hell let loose" by Max Hastings, now available in paperback, is an excellent one-volume history of WWII, with much of the story told in the words of the combatants.

** Remember "Nineteen" by Paul Hardcastle?   "In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26...In Vietnam he was 19".