Sombre words a reminder
Remembrance Day commemoration
“… Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth … Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy …”
These are some of the words from the book of Matthew (5:3-12) in the Bible that set the tone for the Port Alfred Moth war veterans’ annual Remembrance Day commemoration at the Battleaxe Shellhole behind the River & Ski Boat Club on Sunday November 12.
The means is more important than the end, newly appointed Shellhole chaplain Jacques Pieterse shared with the gathering.
Referring to The Beatitudes in the Bible, he said: “If we all lived and walked this way, there would be no wars.”
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the Armistice on November 11 1918, to signal the end of World War 1.
At 11am on November 11 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent
after more than four years of continuous warfare. Remembrance Day is set aside to remember the men and women killed during the two world wars and in other conflicts. The main speaker at the solemn event was former Old Bill the Moths title for the head of a particular branch or “shellhole” of the organisation), Mark Schroder.
He said while Remembrance Day brought into focus the horrors of trench warfare and four years of wasted life, it was also important to talk about other conflicts, including those currently tearing the world apart in the Ukraine, Israel and Gaza.
Schroder stayed with the religious theme that opened Sunday’s event, as he provided a different angle on the history of the current conflict in Gaza.
He said prayer had driven British General Edmund Allenby’s successful conflict-free capture of Jerusalem during World War 1.
Hinting at the importance of what today is known as military intelligence, he said there had been a lot of behindthe-scenes work leading up to the iconic image of Allenby walking into the holy city. He traced the origins of today’s Gaza conflict from those events, through to the 1967 Six-day War, to today.
The shellhole’s current Old Bill, Kevin Riddin, recited the traditional text for the day, “We remember them”.
As is tradition, the flag was lowered to the sound of and rehoisted to the