Caz

isay:

lindaboucher:

It’s Remembrance Sunday.

I feel ambivalent about the glorification of war…. but I feel it’s important to remember.

I remember my friend Arthur, who was in the Second World War, and who was without doubt the most bitter person I ever met.

I remember my (American) great Uncles, who were all stationed in Britain during WWII, and who spent an hour in a pub in Bristol- the only time they were all together at the same time for many years. They carved their names in the wood panelling.

I remember that one of those brothers would refuse to allow anyone with a gun into his house. “Because if you’re carrying a gun, you aren’t my friend”.

I remember my childhood neighbors, Uncle Phil and Auntie Pearl, the kindest people in the whole wide world.

I remember that these people were so young when life threw them that curve ball.

That they did what they thought they had to do, that they did what they were told. That they did what was expected of them.

How thrilling and frightening it must have been.

And what a sad world we live in that so shortly after ‘the war to end all wars’ they had to go and do it all again.

And I remember that we don’t seem to have learnt much.