Learn the lessons from the past

Remembrance Day is upon us again. We will buy and wear the poppies. We will observe silences, attend functions and marches and we will really, really mean it. Yet, wars still rage. Why haven’t some of us learned the lessons of the past? Will they ever? The world remains a maelstrom of turmoil, risks and threats surround us that haven’t been seen since the 1930s. Does mankind have to go through another World War? I sincerely hope not.

I watched a TV interview the other day with a 93- year- old 11th Armoured Division veteran who served in WWII. He described how his comrades felt they were going to change the world when they went off to war in Europe. He also described that as the conflict went on and he escaped from two burning tanks losing comrades each time that his mindset changed to just wanting himself and his close group to survive. He said it wasn’t until his unit reached the BergenBelsen concentration camp, one of the first to do so, that he realised what he had been fighting for. He recalled that his unit was ordered to stop at the fence and not to give food to the starving prisoners. Some disobeyed and the poor fellow broke down as he described how prisoners at the front of the fence were crushed in the stampede for food.

At the end of the interview he said this to the BBC reporter, Lisa Summers, “We joined the army, boys of our age, we thought we were going to change the world - we didn’t. It is still the same. We still have concentration camps, starvation, people looking for a safe home to bring up their youngsters. But selfishness and greed are still there.”

It is a sad reflection of service willingly given. There is a lesson for us all. When some people, and they may be powerful, bang the drums of war. There is one word we can use to arm ourselves, “NO.” The trouble is that using the, “NO,” word may mean one might have to fight for it.