Now just to be clear i'm in no way saying remembrance day is a bad thing, far from it - but every year what turns my stomach is the various hypocrites ( in the media, politicians of all hues, celebs and doubtless many ordinary folk too) who get all dewy eyed and emotional about 'the fallen' on 11/11 but treat the armed forces as out of sight out of mind the other 364 days of the year.
its all very well to say " we will always remember" but always doesn't mean 1/365th of the time
How many of these people think about the sacrifices our armed forces (past , present, serving, injured or killed in the line of duty) made/make day in day out on any other day of the year , how many regularly give money to Help for Heroes or the various other similar charities, how many take issue with govt policies that put our armed services at unnecessary risk, or treat them like expendable pawns , or fail to give them proper care/pay/pension/conditions etc
I'm not saying everyone falls in this bracket by any means , but there are far too many in society who may be quoting " for our tomorrow they gave their today" on remembrance sunday but who's true feelings about the armed forces are far better summed up by the poem 'tommy'
"its tommy this, and tommy that, and chuck him out the brute ,
but it's 'ero of his country when the guns begin to shoot"
I'm not an expert, and I may get parts of my facts or history wrong, but here's the deal...
The war of 1914 to 1918 was called The Great War, and was also called 'The war to end all wars' because it was the first major war that involves so many nations and fought in many places, not just in France, but it did happens in Africa and a naval battle around the Falklands. It ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. Because people believed it to be the war to end all wars, so it was important to mark that day as Remembrance Day as the day to remember the fallen who gave their lives to fight in a war to end all wars.
Well, I'm still not clear on the 'end all wars' part. One option is that before the Great War started, a Bosnian Serb assassinate the president of Austria-Hungary, so Austria-Hungary declare war on Bosnian, and then, to cut the story short and make it easier, let's just say, Country A declare war on Country B, Country C is friends with Country B, so C declare war on A, Country D is friends with A, so D declare war on C, E friends with C, declare war on D, F friends with D war on C, and so on, each country declare war on a country that had declare war on another, it went on until Germany declare war on someone, then to help that country, we declare war on Germany. So it could have been a number of wars put together in one war to end all those small wars.
However, I sometimes think that the second option is that it was one big war hoped to end all future wars, specially as they tried to create League of Nations which was hoped to replace wars.
So yes, it is 1/365th of the time, because every year, for a couple of minutes at 11am, on the 11th of November or on a Sunday nearest to the 11th, we are remembering the fallen who gave their lives to fight a war to end all wars, that's why it is called an anniversary. Remembrance Day is an anniversary. Most people seems to think it is a day chosen to remember our soldiers, those who dies in Falklands War, Gulf War, War on Terror, etc., but most missed the point that Remembrance Day is really about the end of the Great War.
However the League of Nations failed, World War II happens, then after that, attempts to create the United Nations, but still wars happens, Korean War, and so on, and on. More fallen to remember, but we can't just stop every day to remember everyone.
Do we stop to remember our birthdays every day, our weddings every day, death of some loved ones every day, all the time? No, we do think about it, we do talk about it a bit, we do remember it a bit at any time and every day, but we always stop and put aside any problems we have for just one day to focus more on the event on an anniversary.
So it helps to put all the fallen from different wars together into Remembrance Day, and stop on that day to think about the fallen, we all put our problems aside, get together, and talk about it, like we all would put aside our problems, get together, and celebrate our friends' birthdays or wedding anniversary or the anniversary of a death in the family.
I am sure that every day, most of us do think about the fallen, I am sure that at any time, whenever the BBC News talked about yet another soldier who got killed, most of us do spare a moment, I do, so most of us do think about the fallen every day and at any time. We all just stop and think big about all of the fallen on Remembrance Day because it is the anniversary of the end of the First World War which soldiers died hoping that they would end all the wars, but didn't.
Remember that Remembrance Day is not to remember the fallen of any wars, because that is just addition part of the package, Remembrance Day is an anniversary of the end of the first war on International scale.
Beside, most other people don't like wars, fighting, and thinks it's all wrong, they don't care about War on Terror, the don't care about Vietnam War, about Gulf War, they don't want wars. They won't think about the fallen every day, but Remembrance Day, being an anniversary, sometimes helps some of them to just put aside their dislike of wars, just to remember the fallen who tried to end all wars.
Well. that's my option.
