The modern ceremonies of Remembrance seem to have become somewhat corrupted from their original intent.
In Remembrance...
...of what exactly?
Remembrance Day was instituted to remind people of the horror and loss of the Great War, and to pledge "never again". Ironically it has become - at least to some extent - a platform for jingoism and a message of "let their deaths not be in vain", which is almost the exact reverse.
When I was younger Remembrance Day was an annoyance. All the parading, the mandatory church services with school and Scouts. I did not really understand it. In truth, though I participated in the ceremonies I did not even think about it.
To me war was what you saw on the Sunday afternoon film on BBC 1. Bangs, bullets, and knives, and dead bodies. But it was a clean affair. No blood and no horror. Just John Mills, Trevor Howard, John Wayne and Henry Fonda and the like doing their bit and the rightful killing of bad old Nazis, or occasionally Italians and Japanese.
My grandfather never talked about his experiences of war patrolling the Mediterranean. The most he ever did was dig out and give me his old ASDIC operator manuals which had some (very) basic electromagnetism training materials when I was doing electromagentism for my O-level. I don't think he could talk about it, and back then I still did not grasp the realities. He must have come under fire at some point and been in fear of his life, and even lost friends and colleagues, but he never ever uttered a word about it. He was just Grandad.
Even watching the Falklands conflict unfold through the eyes of the media did not really bring with it any real sense of horror. It was too distant, and too abstract. The Belgrano was sunk with a few hundred Argies aboard, but they deserved it didn't they? Even the sinking of the HMS Sheffield (and it surprises me that I remembered the name without having to look it up) was just "unlucky", like losing a piece on the game board. The terror and agony of the men who were mutilated and killed failed to strike home. It was all a bit of a game.
That was until I met someone who had actually fought on the ground. He left the Army and became bar manager at the social facility at my University residence. He only mentioned the Falklands once, but after that moment the burden that he carried every day, though well hidden and never discussed, was visible peeking through the veil of his cheerful joviality. He had fired a weapon in anger, seen his enemy fall, and known that he was facing the prospect of the same fate.
My grandfather died when I was just out of my teens, and I never thanked him for what he and his generation did. It is only recent conflicts (and by recent I mean the last 15 years or so) which have made me stop and think about the realities behind the situation. About the death, the terror, the agony, and the sheer filth of it all. As I have got older and armed conflict has become an ever-present but increasing part of our reported world, and British service men and women are reported maimed and killed on foreign soil seemingly daily, the realisation of the choice they make to join the armed forces and risk placing themselves in harm's way, and sacrifice they face at the behest of our politicians strikes ever deeper. And it is this realisation that makes me question whether the annual celebration of their loss is really still serving the purpose it should.
Remembering and honouring the fallen is only right and proper; celebrating the violence and promoting the political agenda is not. Unfortunately, I fear the latter has become more prominent than the former.
