Who Else Remembers?

Yet, when I go out on the street in my comfortable community I see men and women from a later war, selling those bright red poppies, symbols of the killing fields where comrads died. I wear one proudly and I wonder how many people really remember.     Do they remember those 18 and 19 year olds who, after very little training, sailed off for distant lands in the name of freedom?   Do they remember the broken families who had to struggle to stay alive when ‘the boys’ didn’t come home?   Do people remember the youth of countless nations who died in the mud or trenches of northern France?   Do people think of the losses suffered by mankind when future artists, musicians, engineers, architects or hard working farmers, fathers, brothers, sons and grandchildren lost limbs or failed to return?   Yet, 1914-1918 was a long time ago, in another era, and for many, in another place.     Do they remember the 20 year olds who went off to war in 1939? They would be 86 today had they lived. Every day I read obituaries of veterans who are now dying. The number of veterans still alive is miniscule considering how many served.     Is D-Day just a story to tell our young?  Is trench warfare, tank attacks, daylight bombing just something they make movies about?     I think not. At the corner of where I live there is a small building where veterans gather. They come together not to retell their military glories. They come together to be with comrades. They are ‘a band of brothers’ seeking the solace of each other as they try not to remember the horrors but still remember those who fell.     I pause at this time of the year to think about the battlefields and the war cemeteries that dot France, Belgium and so many other countries.     I think back to France, to Ypres, to Vimy, to Passchendaele, to Amiens, Armantieres, Belleau Woods, to Caen, Dieppe, Dunkirk, Mons, Normandy and Verdun or Gallipoli. I carry the image of rows of white crosses in France, in Italy and most of Europe, Asia and Africa.     I often remark on their ages when they died and I join the countless others, all over the world, who remember.     I read and reread my book of war poetry and even though I was not with them, I remember.     Let us consider their anguish, their fear, their pain and disappointment as their blood soiled the mud. Let us remember their heroism, and the insane waste of life.   These men earned the right to ask you to remember.     Wear a poppy. Place a wreath. Observe a minute of silence. Thank goodness you survived it but don’t let yourself or your children ever forget.   Remembering is our debt to those who died for others.                    Have you forgotten yet?…                 Look up, and swear by the green of the spring, that you’ll never forget.                                                                                                                                 Sigfried Sassoon 1919         Suggested reading:   Up The Line to Death: The War Poets 1914-1918, An Anthology, Methuen  Books,                                                London:1964