Honour war dead by promoting peace

‘MISSING presumed dead’, ‘died from shell-shock’, ‘died from tuberculosis contracted by trench warfare’… these describe my three uncles who died in, and because of,

the unbelievable horrors of the First World War.

It was also poignantly portrayed in the BBC2 film Testament of Youth, and, even more so by its similar impact on me in primary school days, the film All Quiet on the Western Front – released in 1930, but not shown until much later, initially banned because of its strong antiwar message.

The ‘lest we forget’ Remembrance Day annual message would be so much more authentic, and a real legacy to the millions killed, if only it fully promoted a strong peace and disarmament campaign to reverse the old endemic British empire militarism, still espoused by all British governments – particularly today’s – since armistice in 1918.

It’s fraudulent to say we sincerely remember and honour the war dead for their sacrifice when Britain and Nato – especially Trump’s

US – proudly boast of their big, and increasing, military spending. Trump recently glorifying in the US’s increase from $700 billion to $716bn for next year and telling other countries to reach two per cent

GDP minimum – all at a time of severe cuts in essential public services hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.

How can we tell teenagers not to carry knives for self-defence when our whole government’s philosophy is to be armed to the teeth to stay a ‘world power’?

Falsely declared an ‘independent’ deterrent, now we’re still into spending £205bn over the next 20 years (contrast with £20bn for NHS to 2023) to renew our ‘unusable’ submarine-based Trident missile nuclear weapons system. Nuclear bombs in their warheads, which will not only annihilate all human life, but ironically do it with no gore via instant death by evaporation, or freezing temperatures below minus 40C.

No wonder many of us as teenagers in the Fifties joined and marched with CND, the only real peace movement in the country, which I’m still proud to subscribe to and with which I rejoiced last June over the decades fought, eventually won, battle to get the UN to enact a global treaty to ban nuclear bombs, signed by 123 countries.

Which were missing? All existing nuclear bomb states, with hard rightwing UK and US pals being most prominent. Yes, Britain has truly forgotten my uncles.

Alan Debenham Taunton, Somerset