In the UK, Remembrance Day is fast approaching. A day introduced after the First World War when the nation, as one, remembered the sacrifice. I’m sure, even if you don’t recognise Remembrance Day, there is a similar day wherever you are.
I must admit, I don’t get into these days. Not because it’s not worthwhile. On the contrary, in this particular case, it’s because I don’t think they go far enough.
Armed conflicts are political conflicts, where diplomacy has failed. For example, the Second Warld War started with various land-grabs, which signified finally to the British and French governments that they had run out of diplomatic options with the Germans. Famously, appeasement.
So I think when we commemorate the victims of such conflicts, we should also remember that they only happened because diplomacy failed. It shouldn’t be just “we will remember them”, thank them for their sacrifice, then blindly offer our support as fresh generations march to their deaths. We should learn from those failures. It’s “we will remember them with a view to preventing this in future“.
Politicians have to do better. Allied forces labelled World War One as “the war to end all wars”, because the people involved were fighting for a once-and-for-all end to war. Within a generation, how wrong they were.
Mister Bump 
Here is “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.” 🖤
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Your comments on the need to remind everyone that we should learn from the failures is on target. Our recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that we retained little or none of what was learned in the Vietnam conflict.
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In fact it’s quite rare to learn from preceding generations.
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Regretfully true.
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Oh yes, this point should be hammered into all world ( so- called) leaders. Why do they plunge nations into war without exploring every single way to prevent it. Well said Pete
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Thanks, Sadje. I think it goes two ways. For leaders, how can they attend one of these commemorations, then an hour later be ordering some destruction or other? And for the public at large, how can they accept this?
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You’re welcome! The collective consciousness of the public has become quite dormant for, in my opinion, selfish reasons. They just care about how it’ll effect them.
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True
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☹️
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Very well said. Leaders keep failing us, however.
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True
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When I was at high school in Australia we would have Anzac Day assembly remembering Gallipoli and totally ignoring Australian conscripts being sent to Vietnam, with very little idea why they were there ( All the way with LBJ ), at that very moment. Nothing much has changed throughout the world ever since.
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Yes you’d thonk that people would make that connection.
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