Sunday 29 August 2010

Lest We Forget

Jenny McCartney, in her weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph, has an article subtitled "War veterans must wonder at the use we make of the freedom they fought for" in which she discusses the case of Wendy Lewis - she of the 'urinating on a war memorial' fame - and the protest mounted at the entrance to the court by a group of war veterans. She ends her article:
"The dwindling band of veterans are fighting another war now, the war against forgetting. They remember how they bought us freedom, at a vast cost. But when they contemplate the nasty, senseless capering of fools..........you could forgive them for questioning what we're doing with it."
Of course the war veterans to which Jenny McCartney refers are those of World War I and II, however it is worth remembering that countless people have given their lives, through the centuries, fighting for the freedom of our country.

When writing about the "nasty, senseless capering of fools" we must not forget our elected representatives, the vast majority of whom have indulged themselves in giving away a great number of the freedoms for which those countless people gave their lives.

In the United Kingdom Rememberance Sunday is the second Sunday in November, the Sunday nearest to 11 November, at which HM The Queen lays a wreath at the Cenotaph, accompanied by the leaders of our political elite. Our political leaders are thus supposed to be honouring those that fought to retain our freedoms. Perhaps their brains have not registered the fact that their political acts should not therefore dishonour the dead!

Kinda makes that ceremony a bit of a sham - does it not?