The Importance Of Remembrance

 I've been thinking about this a lot since Remembrance Day on November 11. Pisces and I always make the effort to mark the day by standing for the one minute's silence at 11:00 AM (We do the same for ANZAC Day). It's not hard to remember to do this on either day because the build up is covered widely in the media. On television and radio and in print and on social media there is extensive coverage and of course there are the poppies being distributed at shopping centres. Honestly you'd have to be completely oblivious to miss it - and yet, it seems some folk are.

I got to thinking about this specifically because just at the end of the minute's silence this year - when Pisces and I had both stopped what we were doing - the phone rang. I was somewhat shocked but answered it because the strident noise broke my concentration - it's hard to focus when a loud noise is screaming at you (our phone is set to the highest tone because Pisces is somewhat deaf). The person on the other end wanted to arrange a medical appointment for Pisces and was somewhat shocked when I pointed out that we were trying observe the one minute of silence. 

It's not the first time this sort of interruption has happened but it is the first time I've made it clear this is inappropriate. If the traffic in the city can be brought to a halt for a couple of minutes while buglers play and people stop to remember the horrors of war (in the city centre all traffic lights are turned to red so this can happen) why can't businesses of all sorts do the same unless there is a safety issue? I'm always appalled that our local shopping centre doesn't at the least announce the time and play the bugle calls over the public address system. It has never happened in my experience. 

The thing is the whole event takes only about three minutes and truth be told, however busy our lives are, we can spare that amount of time. These ceremonies are important because while we've heard the old adage about those who don't know their history being bound to repeat the mistakes of the past we need to be reminded of that. This is a way to allow us to reflect on our nation's past, a way for us to remember the waste of lives that war brings and just maybe we might remember that and avoid being rushed into a similar war in the future.

In memory of John Ellis, Robert Ellis and Horace King.

Remembrance Day 2011

It's just gone 11:00 AM on 11/11/11. We're at home and set an alarm to make sure we remembered to listen to the radio at the hour. When the Last Post began we stopped for a minute in silence in memory of the fallen in so many wars. We do this wherever we are at this time and on this day because we believe it's important, not just because we have lost family members in war although we have. These are men and women whose lives were cut short, who left behind families and friends whose lives were changed irrevocably. They were defending something they believed was important enough to be prepared to lose their lives.

So you will understand how disappointed I was a few years ago at a major shopping centre when there was no announcement over the public address system, no playing of the Last Post and no acknowledgement of those who died. I doubt it would have been noticed even if they had. Anyone in the shops nearest me at the time - trendy fashion boutiques with music blasting so loud it was deafening - wouldn't have heard the announcement. I hope things have changed. They may have given that we have just had the reality of war brought home to us again by recent events in Afghanistan.

The symbol of Remembrance Day is the field poppy. It grows across Europe, its scarlet and crimson petals a poignant reminder of spilled blood and, at the same time, renewal. Many years ago I visited the battlefields of Flanders. It was a grey, blustery early Spring day and the poppies showed bravely against the fields. It was a touching reminder of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae's well known poem In Flanders Fields. You can find the words of this beautiful poem and more about McCrae here.

As it happens, just outside my window, I can see the last of this season's field poppies in my garden. A breeze has come up and the earth beneath them is scattered with every shade of red as their petals fall like drops of blood. A gentle reminder. Lest we forget.

Remembrance Day

On November 11 at 11 AM, 1918 the armistice marking the end of World War 1 was signed. The survivors of what was then known as the Great War (and hoped by its participants to be the war that ended all war) were slowly demobilised and made their way home carrying their scars (mental and physical) with them. Their hope that no-one would ever have to go to war again was not realised and sadly probably never will be. For their comrades who lost their lives there was no home coming.

I have visited some of the graves of those slain in World War 1 in France and it would break your heart. I can think of little more saddening than to wander a war graveyard and see row after row of white crosses marking the graves of young men, many not much more than boys. In a normal cemetery the graves are mostly of the old. While it is still sad you can imagine that they have lived full lives and seen their families grow up but these young men knew none of that and their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and all those who cared for them carried the loss to their own graves. They gave their lives so others could be free.

May we always be able to say 'We will remember them.'

Remembrance Day - Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day, like Anzac Day, seems to me to be unutterably sad. Heaven knows there have been wars before and since but these days with their memories of the best and brightest of a generation on both sides of the conflict being sent out to die in their hundreds of thousands are especially touching. Somehow they seem to mark the loss of innocence for the world and Australia in particular. Of the young men who marched off to dreams of glory while doing their bit those who came home (physically and mentally whole if they were lucky) bore the marks of their experience for the rest of their lives.

I'll tell you the story of one family, not particularly special but fairly typical of many Australians, during the 1914-1918 War.

At the outbreak of the war Thomas Oglesby King and his wife, Charlotte, had six surviving adult children, four sons and two daughters. They had lost twin daughters in early childhood. Horace Chamberlain King , their third son, aged nineteen, joined up on March 8, 1915 and was followed his brother, Glen Roy, then aged twenty three, who joined up on 25 June 1915.

Horace was posted to the 28 Infantry Battalion as a Corporal and Glen Roy to the 10 Light Horse Regiment as a private. Although I can find no record of it family stories say that their oldest son Bertram also served. Both Horace and Glen Roy served in several theatres of war - a chilling way to describe a place where men are being killed! Horace gained rapid promotion to Captain. He was mentioned in despatches and was also awarded a Military Cross. He was killed in France on 7 April, 1918. He was only twenty two years old.

I said at the beginning that this wasn't a special family and that's true as far as history is concerned but they are special to me because Horrie, Dick (as Glen Roy was known to his family) and Bert were my great uncles. I know the loss of a son and brother remained an ache in the hearts of the family for the rest of their lives.

When I went to France I didn't search for Horrie's grave in the war cemeteries where it breaks the heart to see row after row of white crosses stretching as far as you can imagine. Instead I stood in the fields of Flanders on a bleak day in April where poppies spotted the ground like blood. I remembered them - the men who had lived and died so long ago - and prayed that their sacrifice would be enough and there would never be another war.

I could tell of other families too, of the Martins where a cousin went to the same war and returned physically recovered but never quite the same man as before. Then, in World War 2, there was a family where four brothers and a sister joined the Royal Australian Air Force but not all came home. They were the Ellis family and you can find the details of their lost ones, John and Robert, through the Australian War Memorial. One day I will tell their story too but that's enough for now.