Remember to forget, lest we forget

On Armistice day it is easy to remember those who lost their lives fighting the 'Great' war and World War II. It's far harder to remember those who died yesterday, are dying today and tomorrow in the name of their country. When we look at our most recent and ongoing wars we can far too easily see the Politics that have created them. It's hard not to feel shame. And yet of all the wars in recent history, surely the only real war, a war that had to be fought, a war we can be proud to have fought in, if that is indeed something we can ever feel, is World War II. And yet we cannot feel this without the instant feeling of shame that in fact, it need never have got that far, that we were in many ways responsible for it happening and that the end when it came is still a cause of heartache for it's many victims. However, we can all see the shocking atrocity at the heart of that war that allows us to feel pride in over coming it. Gosh, 'shocking atrocity', what a way to brush off the Holocaust as if it was just a mere fact in our history. And yet in many ways it has been just that because we live in a world where genocide still happens. Where Human rights abuses happen quietly behind the media door of the Daily Mail (and her friends) and the "deluge" of immigrants, the Royal Wedding, Berlusconi's sex life, THE ECONOMY. We fight wars because we are to gain something. We don't fight them to help others. World War II or otherwise. Had Hitler not been ambitious in taking a stronghold of power but had quietly gone about his epic genocide within the borders of his own country, whose to say we would even have noticed before it had got too painfully obvious to ignore? Would we have acted on the basis of the Holocaust alone? I'm afraid I don't feel confident enough in Politics to say yes.

It is this shame in our politics which makes it hard to look upon our modern day service men and women in the way we see yesterday's. It is hard not to think of World War I without imagining the 18 year old's of today and their utter childishness, being forced into a battle they were unlikely to survive but it was take the chance above the trench of face certain death if you turned back. Even writing that my belly just flipped. Can you imagine the utter horror, the torture of a choice of probable death or certain death? It's almost impossible to believe the cruelty of that political decision. And when you read anything of the battles they fought it is almost unbelievable that anyone could have survived that war. It seems against all probability.

And then we look at World War II and the reality of the battle ground moving permanently from the political to the personal destruction of every day people. War changed from being one fought by young men with no choice to fought by ALL citizens with no choice. We bomb innocent civilians as part of our battle strategy. All in the name of what? Well, today, oil, who knows tomorrow. But all for politics. All for gain. All for power.

So who are these people who chose to fight for their country? You and I. We are all part of our global corruption, our unfair strangle hold on smaller nations, our economy. I drink my daily Starbucks and pay money into my bank. I buy clothes I don't need and consume products for pleasure. I enjoy the freedom of living in my country in the rich Western world. When I think about it in the terms we are discussing I feel utterly horrified by what is done in my name, in the name of my country, in the name of my freedom. When I think further I find that I am not comfortable being part of a Country whose politicians decision that we are more powerful and by default, important than another can be used to justify a war on 'Terror' or a War for oil. I'd much rather think our service men and women were fighting humanitarian wars and making the world a better place for all. In some cases they are but for the most part they are fighting to make it better for us. As is every other nation on the planet. Wars happen because countries seek opportunities. And wars end because countries inflict the might of their terrible power in two single bombs and destroy countless lives.

It is for this reason that it is so much harder to remember and honour our Service men and women today. But honour and remember them we must. We might not agree with the politics behind their jobs but we must remember that as much as you and I are complicit, working for the economy and spending and spending on plastic money we don't earn, here are people who stand up and risk their lives for a system they might not believe in but in order to protect what freedoms we have fought hard to gain. Whatever a persons motive for doing their job, few can say they trully risk their lives, that they have run in front of an armoured vehicle to protect a child, that they have fought Dictators and repressive regimes, that they are the reason today's 18 year old's don't have to chose between a death by firing squad or a death on the battlefield. So let's remember to forget the politics, lest we forget the humans who give something you and I are not prepared to, their lives.