Remembrance Sunday, 9th November 2014

Sunday was a trip to a different Church, Christ the King, Battyeford, The day was Remembrance Sunday, and my father was laying the wreath. Here he is after the service.

But what do we remember? Is it the glorious dead? I can see nothing glorious in war, most of the dead were ordinary people who signed up to serve their country. There is no case for nationalism here, one of the most moving parts of the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance in the television on Saturday night was to hear the prayer in German, read by a member of the German army.

To remember is to re — member. To deliberately bring to mind things that we may have forgotten, and think about it again. The sacrifice of young men (mostly) who did what their country told them to.

It is not to glorify war; War is always tragic and to go to war is always a bad choice. But just sometimes it may be the least bad of a number of bad things to choose between.

So we remember the sacrifice of those who died. And not just them, those who survive and come home traumatised; the suicide rate among service personnel who have served in combat zones is higher than that in the population at large.

Ordinary people all of them called to do an extraordinary job.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
we will remember them