Remembrance Day is still a week away but I find it easier to think about now than I will on that week-end. there’s a patriotic fervour that sweeps up the main streets and flutters the flags and brings a tear to the eye. Grand old guys in berets with medals and badges are wheeled up to the memorials to shiver in the cold and remember what only they can remember…And we bow and listen to the military band blowing ‘Taps” or “The Last Post” or “Amazing Grace” and some of us wonder why we’re still up to our asses in wars when the sacrifice of these men and women was supposed to mean that it should end. So there’s an edge of remembered promises broken…and while we honour the memory of those both dead and alive of our wars…we still seem to be marching off to create more memories. I was a soldier. I knew a few of the old ones. i think they enjoyed this once a year gathering, if only to see who was still alive…and to share stories of health care…and laugh at the youngsters. Because after it’s over on the eleventh…they almost all go back in their boxes…wherever that may be…and we can cling to a little emotional hangover for a week or two and get on with forgetting for another year. It pisses me off every year…and that’s why it’s easier to write about this week in stead of next week.
For me next week will be a time for remembering dead family…dead friends…some dead heroes…and some dead soldiers. I won’t weep or wail and I probably won’t go over to the parade or war memorial. I’ve seen enough of those. And I’ll tell myself once again to try to remember all of those who’ve gone…more often than once a year.
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