Published: 2019-11-11T00:00:00.000+00:00
Edited: 2025-02-24T00:00:00.000+00:00
Status: 🌲evergreen

At the Going Down of the Sun and in the Morning We Will Remember Them

Reading time: 4 minutes

At eleven minutes past eleven on eleventh day of the eleventh month,
people fall silent the world over to pay their respects to those who
died in a war that ended over a hundred years ago.

A minute or two of silent reflection, to remember the heroic dead of the
Great War. The war that was supposed to end all wars.

The old lie might have been that it is sweet and right to die for your
country, but the greatest lie was told to those young men signing up to
fight in 1914.

But here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand To man's blind
indifference to his fellow man And a whole generation were butchered and damned

There was nothing great about that war, nor any war fought since; only
senseless slaughter. It might be a simplification to call the First
World War a family feud for the royal families of Europe, but not by
much. A family feud that claimed an estimated sixteen million lives.

You don't have to take my word for it that there was nothing glorious
about the gas-filled trenches of the First World War. Take the word of
Wilfred Owen, or Siegfried Sassoon. They were there.

And what of the wars fought since? How many have been fought for no
other reason than to line the pockets of those far away from the
fighting?

Today, a hundred and one years after the guns finally fell silent over
the western front, I did not pause for a moment to remember. I did not
wear a red poppy pinned to my chest. I did not do what has come to be
considered a patriotic duty.

Not because I don't want to remember, nor because I don't want to honour
the sacrifices made. It is both right and necessary to remember the
fallen, but I won't have any part in the farce that modern remembrance
services have become.

For much of my life you could find me in church come remembrance Sunday,
attending the service proudly wearing my uniform.

I was never an army or air cadet, but I was member of St John Ambulance.
We were still a uniformed pseudo-military organisation. And every
remembrance Sunday I stood shoulder to shoulder with those in the armed
forces cadets. I have lowered the standard to honour the fallen. I have
laid the wreath before the local memorial.

I have honoured the fallen of both World Wars in every way I knew how,
for years.

And for years I sat and listened to the vicar preach about how we must
never forget their sacrifice, all the while wondering at the hypocrisy
of it all. Because while we are told every year that we must remember,
they forgot to tell us that we must also learn from what happened.

I could see that hypocrisy as a teenager, and I still see it now.

Of our politicians paying lip service to the fallen one day and selling
arms to Saudi Arabia the next.

Of the symbolism of the poppy being hijacked by nationalists, insisting
that those who don't wear a poppy each November are some kind of traitor
to their country.

I could have sworn we decided a while back that kind of nationalism was
dangerous and not to be tolerated. Oh wait, we did; it was called World
War II.

For a more than decade I attended remembrance services every November. I
stood to attention in the memorial gardens, toes freezing in my
spit-shined shoes. And it is precisely because of that, because I
listened to what was being preached that I have become vehemently
anti-war as an adult.

As a community, as a nation, we have learned nothing from the horrors
of the world wars. And until we do, our words of remembrance are hollow
and meaningless.

Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame The killing and
dying it was all done in vain Oh Willy McBride it all happened again And
again, and again, and again, and again

The soldiers and victims of the Great War tried to tell us over a
hundred years ago, the only way to truly honour their memory is to
ensure it never happens again. It's in their letters, in their poetry,
in the shadow of every white cross in the cemeteries that still litter
the French countryside.

There are precious few left alive who remember the First World War, and
each year the number of World War II veterans dwindles. All too soon
there will be no one left who can tell us what it was like to be there,
and if we're not careful all we'll be left with is hollow remembrance.

These days you're much more likely to find a white poppy pinned to my
chest, despite having family members in the Royal British Legion, the
organisation responsible for the red poppy appeal. Not because I don't
believe in what the red poppy represents, but because I fear the
original symbolism has been warped almost beyond repair.

The white poppy seeks to remember all the victims of war; combatant,
civilian and animal. It also represents a commitment to peace and
challenges attempts to glamorise, glorify or otherwise celebrate war. I
believe it is exactly how the victims of World War I would want to be
remembered.

Because it's not enough to remember once a year, when our politicians
and newscasters tell us to. I remember all year round, and try to back
that up with action. Only when we have truly eradicated war will the
dead of the Great War truly be able to rest in peace, only when we have
finally achieved what they died for.

How do we get there? How do we achieve something as lofty and
far-fetched as world peace?

By holding those in power accountable when they try to send young men
and women to war on false pretences.

By demanding an end to arms sales to regimes with known human rights
abuses.

By demanding quality physical and mental health care for those who
come back from war.

By taking one step at a time.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.
Will you take the next step with me?

Originally published at medium.com