Why do we Remember?
Every year we have this rather odd ritual. We allow old men in silly outfits wearing tinkley bits of metal on their chest to parade up and down the streets. To most of the children who see them it is all very odd, and each year it becomes odder to them. I look and see that yet another war has begun.
Why is this so? It is because we have failed in a promise.
Failed to learn a lesson.
Failed to pass that lesson on to our mystified children who can longer grasp what the fuss is all about.
The air you breathe is a result of the pain and suffering they endured so you could continue to do so. So let us go back through the mists of time and remember…..
In a far off field some time ago lay thousands of men.
They came from Topeka, Inola, Car Cross and Winnipeg. They came from the farms of Iowa and the sheep farms of Australia; Cockneys from England and roustabouts from New Zealand. They came from towns and villages often so small no one has ever heard of them.
They speak all languages and dialects and come from the great ethnic pool that the world has to offer. Together they have been Nation builders.
They left mothers, fathers, wives, siblings, children and the land they loved behind. It wasn’t for adventure or glory that they came, though some hoped for it. They came because our way of life was threatened and we needed them badly.
There can be no pretty words here. This is not a place of sunning poppies and neat white crosses. Nothing to inspire or evoke greatness. Acrid, oily smoke fills the air and stings the eyes. The searing thunder of guns are so deafening it is impossible to think. The lucky ones are already dead. This is a horrifying spectre from Dante’s Inferno.
Those who yet live lay in the muck with the stink of stale blood, rotting flesh, feces and urine mixed with cordite as their sacramental incense. They lay with bodies torn apart in great torment for hours and sometimes days. Sometimes they do it in stunned stupor and sometimes screaming their lives away in agony. They suffer for each breath you and I take for granted. They force their hearts to beat even though each pulse soaks the filthy soil of this far off place with another squirt of their precious blood. All they want is to see loved ones a last, final time. Observe the glory of war, for the only glory here is in surviving it.
They suffer without the comfort of family and friends. They do so without solace of any kind. There is no one to give them the last rites or for them to spend their final moments with. Many of them are so young they are little more than children. Many do not understand why they are dying because the pain has taken their reason.
But we know why. We sent them to do it…and they went because it was so very important if we were to continue to have the freedoms we now enjoy. We did not send them for land or power or money. They did not go out of greed for another’s possessions. They went because the world was being threatened by tyranny and oppression. They went because some fringe lunatic somewhere had decided that warfare was an acceptable means to an end. They shook in palsied terror at what they knew they must face, they vomited out of fright, but they did it all the same. They did it in the full knowledge that many of them were to die in unpleasant and painful ways. They went because they wanted their families safe from the storm.
The battlefields roll past: The Somme, Ypres, Spain, Maginot, Dieppe, Monte Casino, D-Day, Bataan, Corrigedor, Berlin, the 54th Parallel, the Inchon Valley, Desert Storm, and now Afghanistan. The list is endless, and each one has fields such as the one I speak of. Both sides pay a terrible price for fanatical visions.
The glimmer of light finally fades from those young eyes in such a far off place. He is finally at peace, and we have lost a doctor, a poet, a writer, a great artist, a cure for cancer. We have lost son, father and lover. Those that return will never be the same, for the memories of the horrors they have witnessed will haunt them forever. Some will be with us without parts of their bodies and others without parts of their minds. The toll mounts even among those that come home. Everyone on both sides suffers terribly. So what are we to do then?
We made a promise near the start of the last century. It was made in good faith and we seem to be forgetting it. We promised that we would remember all they endured and honor them for it. We promised that we would learn and try to do better so that no more of our people would have to suffer through what they did on our behalf. Let us all remember that there is a cost for freedom and that these men willingly paid for it. There is no love greater than that of one who is willing to lay down his life for his fellow man.
Yet the malls remain open and on Madison Avenue and in the TV stations across the land it is business as usual. Some employees are not even given the choice as to whether or not they will be allowed to give their thanks. That is the lesson we are teaching our children. That is how we will show our respect for the lives they gave.
As the new century unfolds before us, let us remember this promise . . . "Lest we forget," and renew it. Their sacrifices have allowed us to walk into the new century with eyes bright and full of hope. Let’s not leave them behind.
All I can offer is remembrance, and tears for what you gave. Let us hope others do too.
© Dave Mulligan (AKA Otterkins)
25 OCT 01
published with author's permission
Visit the author's website at "OtterLimits"
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