We will remember them.

Hi everyone.

Today people around the world observed Remembrance Sunday, and on the eleventh hour a two-minute silence was held as we reflected on all those who died in war. Those who looked forward to returning home at Christmas, only to die anonymously in the mud hundreds of miles from their homes and families. Those whose futures were shot down even as they were shot down in the sky. Those who, even today, are camped out in Iraq, Afghanistan and other war fronts, and might never come back.
Every country has had its share of losses; Every one has had its taste of war. So surely the least we can do for them is preserve the peace they fought so hard to give us. And yet, when it matters the most, we forget those whom we swear each year to remember. The First World War was supposed to be "The war to end all wars". But then, just 21 years later, when Hitler sparked Word War II by invading Poland, did he for a moment think of all the soldiers who might die just because the ideas of one political group were "more important" than the others? Germany must have suffered losses in WW I as well, and I know Hitler might have been a bit messed up, but even he could have spared half a thought for the havoc he would unleash upon the world; a havoc which the world swore never to recreate.
Surely this, more than anything else, is the purpose of History lessons in schools. For all the source analysis, essay writing, fact memorising and textbook copying, do we sometimes miss the big picture? Isn't the only reason we learn about the past to stop it happening again in the future? If the President of America had taken a moment to think about the consequences, for both sides, before he invaded Vietnam during the Cold War, he could have averted many more deaths. Seeing manpower in numbers and lists, do the world's great war leaders ever think about the real people before declaring war? Could terrorists really have still flown into the Twin Towers if they had remembered deaths in the past, whether from world wars, or Gulf wars, or any war?
So I'm sorry this has been a page of deep thought; it won't always be like this. But I'm in a reflective mood today. And when you think about it, there's a valid point. When we say "we will remember them", do we?

Jack