This morning I shall be at the War Memorial in Keighley to pay my respects to all those killed in the two World Wars, and indeed all conflicts past and present.
I shall of course observe the two-minutes silence to commemorate Germany signing an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railway wagon outside Compiègne.
When I was a young lad, one of my friends had his granddad living with him, and this old feller had fought on the Western Front, but of course as a child that meant little to me. I was reading Biggles, and The Victor and Hornet comics, and so as you can imagine my impressions of the War, ANY war was a little warped to say the least.
Well anyway, one year round Remembrance Sunday, I must have been wittering more often than usual when this chap suddenly starts shouting telling me to be quiet, how I didn't know what I was talking about, and finally finishes off by saying how he had nothing but contempt for the leaders, both political and military at the time.
Eventually, he calmed down and said that his main grievance was that THEY must have decided on the ceasefire at least a few days before declaring it. In addition, even in the last few hours before 11 o'clock on that Monday many soldiers were still shot and killed. For that reason alone (if any others were needed) he had no respect for anyone who wanted to make a "grand gesture" at the cost of other people's lives.
"Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,"
This from Dulce et Decorum Est, the poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1917.
At the going down of the sun we shall remember them...
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