A Gift from a Sister
In my youth I took what were, I thought at the time, reasonable poses, major among them to moralize over past military exercises by my country. I was too analytical to be a pacifist but I wanted to be - after all, it relieves one of enormous moral burden. I do not think I gave enough honest space to the fact that I lost an uncle after Normandy, and to take seriously the question of whether this was worth it (the answer is tricky, but I do now believe SOME people had to die - and maybe it should be an honour to our family that one of ours did).And of course as a youth I was contemptuous of observances like Armistice Day, coming up this weekend. I could sit quiet for two minutes, but only barely. Now, I find it no problem. This lovely video, sent to me by a sister (not the one you know from reading this blog), does a lovely job of stating how I feel about this observance now.
There are interesting discussions going on these days about how far we in the West will go to fight for what we so specially have, or maybe, about how long we will wait before becoming concerned. It seems inevitable to me we will have to decide soon.
UPDATE: The back story is good too.
posted by Alan Adamson @ 2:44 PM
3 Comments:
Funny, I think one of the best songs I know is Eric Bogle's wonderful "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", and yet I no longer buy the message. Though maybe for that war. Whose main role was to create the bigger one that followed.
Hmm I think I was already agreeing with you.
"Not all wars are dumb, but many are."
Hard to disagree with that, Dan!
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