Another remembrance Sunday ( 8th November ) has passed and at 11:00 am on Tuesday 11th November) it was one hundred and seven years to the moment when the Great War - at least on the Western Front ended - when the fighting was brought to an end with the armistice literally at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day.
A few years ago we reached that point in time, where there were no more living veterans from the First World War, yet people will still pause to publically and privately remember the veterans and survivors of more historic and more recent conflicts and particularly those who never came back and those who have no known grave.
The 947,023 military casualties (with 744,702 of them from these islands) and the others from parts of the Empire and then colonies between 1914 and 1918 (by way of comparison with the 264,000 military dead from 1939 - 1945) should still shock us even now.
The killing continued through the morning of the 11th November - with the French soldiers who were killed on the morning of the 11th November 1918 having the dates of their deaths recorded as the 10th November rather than the 11th. In Mons where the first world war in the West began and ended for the BEF at least, there are memorials to the first and last casualties on the Western Front both less than one hundred metres apart.
My family like many others in Wales (and elsewhere on these islands and across the Commonwealth) had relatives who served and survived. And we also had relatives who lost their lives in both the First and Second World Wars and served in other subsequent conflicts.
My lost relatives (and their missing descendants), periodically play on my mind, particularly at times like this. My maternal grandmother’s lost two brothers in the First World War and its aftermath. Her elder brother was a regular soldier, who wrote home and told them not to allow his younger brother to join up and to come out to France.
Sadly it was too late as the younger brother had already joined up and was killed in action in the spring of 1918 and is buried near Amiens. My paternal great grandfather (and my grandfather) both served in the First World War and both survived but both came back as deeply changed men (as did many others) by their service.
As someone, coming from a relatively large extended close family, I am of an age, where I grew up surrounded by a generation of older relatives a number of whom had seen active service in the second world war in the Navy, Army, Air Force and the merchant navy.
They like many from that generation, rarely talked about their actual experiences of the war, and then perhaps save only occasionally to those who they had served with, and who would have understood, because they had survived similar experiences. Younger relatives have also served in more recent more modern conflicts around the world and fortunately have come back.
I have no problem remembering those who lost their lives and the courage, comradeship and the endurance of those who served in the First World War and other more modern conflicts (and not necessarily those who served in the armed forces).
I have no time for rose tinted sentimental nostalgic flag waving foot-tapping pap. As has been said elsewhere, soldiers don’t go into conflict aiming to die - not for the politicians, for patriotism or even us - but they often can end up dying with their friends and comrades with whom they served.
The first world war was the first conflict when afterwards a real concerted efforts were made to remember and record all of those who had fallen - particularly because of the decision (taken for a variety of reasons) not to bring the fallen home for burial. Although there are memorials to the Boer War in Newport Civic Centre and Llandaff Cathedrals.
One consequence is that far too many literally still lie in corners of foreign fields, are names on war memorials, faded photographs, faded memories or too many literally have no grave at all - hence the memorials along the old Western Front.
Speaking of another bloody conflict across the Atlantic, the US President Abraham Lincoln noted at Gettysburg the fallen had given their last full measure of devotion. And that what we do or say does not really matter in comparison with what the fallen did and those who survived had done.
It may be more true today that the world will little note the current crop of political leader’s lyrical wittering on conflict (both recent or older) or long remember them. What we should never forget what the former soldiers and veterans did and what they went through and too many still live with.
We should not just cherish their memory but should ensure that after their military service they remain fully honoured as should be the military covenant. And never again should it ever be found that dead heroes are cheaper to honour than live ones.
