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Remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum
In a slight change of plan, I attended the NMA service in Alrewas, Staffordshire for this year's service.
I have to say I had not yet visited this fantastic place, due to the terrible apathy that strikes when you live near to something. However...
The roads were packed. Police cars closed the road as a thoroughfare and people in hi-viz jackets studded the verges like small fires burning along the roadside lighting us on our way to the monument in the gloom of a November morning. The clouds rippled in grey swathes over our heads and the white gravel crackled underfoot like petrified snow as we marched solemnly towards the massed humanity at the base of the monument. No one could fail to be touched by the sadness and longing in the air, palpable from the moment the threshold of the memorial is crossed. Regiments of trees stand in silent salute along the rolling grass, forever saluting the dead until they are pushed from view by the cairns erupting from the earth, in tribute to the Glorious Dead.
Stirring in my chest I felt the Police Band drummer draw goosebumps along my neck with the sound of the march as the assembled ranks of veterans filed up the incline into the cleft of the hill, like so many had climbed the mountain of liberation so long ago. Around the base of the hill people stood in awed silence, hundreds grouped together in memory, the flash of glimmering medals on aged breasts like the sun catching the tip of a ripple in a pool. Over the Public Address, the gentle voice of the Reverend Simon Lumby evoked memories so old, yet so persistent and so painful, and men who had stood firm against the greatest of adversity began to weep, all of them silently, some of them alone.
The hour drew near and as the voice of the people, united in wishing for peace, grew stronger in singing the hymn it was clear that although few were believers in religion, all were believers in the fight to end the suffering endured at man's own hand and sung those hymns with faith. As the last strains died away, the clouds melted and a shaft of sunlight pierced through the dark and hit the field of poppies pinned to young and old, as though this was Flanders itself. As the hunched figure of the old man, regaled in medals and ribbons, his beret ill-fitting his now grey head, limped to the lectern, a small rainbow hung over the flags of the Armed Forces that tore at their poles like birds tethered to a block. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the shaft of sunlight split open the dark gap between the shoulders of the memorial and, just as the architect designed, fell across the wreaths lain in memory to the dead. Heads bowed and the shoulders of men, many who fought as mere boys, shook with silent and personal grief as the minutes passed and the hush deserted as the Last Post sung out...
The bugler sent a call of high romance--
"Lights out! Lights out!" to the deserted square.
On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,
"God, if it's this for me next time in France ...
O spare the phantom bugle as I lie
Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns,
Dead in a row with the other broken ones
Lying so stiff and still under the sky,
Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die."
The Last Post
Robert Graves
As people stirred and looked to one another to share in the poignancy of what they were experiencing, an old man looked up at me. He stared, unflinchingly, right at me for almost a minute. He was looking at my Grandfather's medals, the 1939-45 Star, the Italy Star, the Africa Star, the Defence Medal, the 1939-45 medal. He saw they were on my right jacket breast, in accordance with tradition when wearing medals of one's Grandfather. He walked towards me, looking at the Royal Artillery pin on my lapel. As he reached me, he looked up, stood up to his full height and stopped in front of me. He wore his own decorations but made no attempt to draw any attention to them. He looked at his poppy. Without saying a word, he smiled, cocked a wink at me, and walked on past.
They're talking of abandoning Remembrance Sunday on the grounds that it "is no longer relevant, serving merely to glorify unjust wars".
For as long as I am able, I will always remember, especially on this Sunday, whether you do or not.
"When you go home
Tell them for us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today."
The Kohima 2nd Division Memorial Epitaph
__________________
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
"Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered are unhappy. Those who have given up both victory and defeat are content and happy.."
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Remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum
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