Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day, my grand parents always called it Armistice Day, "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."
I have never taken the time to list the number of family members that have been in the military but now having done so I am surprised at how long and varied a list it is.
My father and late father in-law, a disabled vet served in the Army in the Philippines during WW2. Four of my uncles and one aunt were in the Air Force, Navy and Army in WW2.One of the uncles, a chief petty officer was in the navy from 1932 to 1968.My sister’s late husband joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam in 1968. Two cousins are Air force Colonels.
From the Guardian UK a Remembrance Day editorial this past weekend lamenting the erosion of the original purpose behind the Cenotaph war monument.
But it is also a corruption of the original intention of those who commissioned the first, temporary, Cenotaph and put it in the heart of Whitehall.
Their ambitious purpose was to impose on the very centre of imperial power the memory of the millions who had died in order to end war. It was to be a daily warning to the politicians who sent them to fight of the awful cost of war, an ambition whose futility was exposed in 1939. Instead, the dead were recast as soldiers in a just war, defenders of a free world.
A letter from the war to end all wars…………
What follows is part of a 92 year old letter I found in some family papers .
This letter was written in reply to my English great grandfather living in the USA from his brother Amos, fighting with the British Expeditionary Force in France March, 1917.
One final winter still remained in the war to end all wars.
I am hoping that this terrible war will soon cease and & I can settle down again, I think the news are looking fairly well soon [sic] & I sincerely hope this summer will see the close ,for I’m sure I don’t want to spend another winter out here ,the people here say it is the worst winter they have witnessed for many years & I can tell you what with the hard weather & the conditions we have had to put up with has been terrible, but still we must keep smiling & hope ,we long to come out victorious.
Dear Brother you ask me if there are any small comforts you could send me? It seems almost impossible for you to send me anything out here seeing that I was more than 5 weeks getting this letter, but I thank you very much for your offer as anything we receive out here from relatives are a luxury. I am pleased to tell you I get a box from home every fortnight which help me out considerably.
…… but I guess there is scarcely a family in England not represented here, but I do hope we shall see a speedy& victorious conclusion………
I think I must now close for this time with fondest love & best wishes from your loving brother, Amos
Current fallen British soldiers from the war in the Mideast travel in a modest motorcade through the countryside of England on their way to Oxford for autopies. It started with just one man on one street corner, now it's many people on many street corners along the way who bear witness to their passing. We need to see our dead and wounded soldiers in this country. No clinical autopsy could tell us more about why they died or were injured than to see them.
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