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Remembrance
Simonthepilgrim
Veteran
Today, 11th November, we remember the dead of all wars and, in particular, we have chosen the bloody slaughter of the 1914-1918 conflict as the symbol of our losses.
As I get older, the horrors and reality of that war become more significant: the loss of a whole generation of young men, the industrialisation of war. I look at the memorials and I want to weep.
Year by year, as this date comes round and I wear a red poppy, I am challenged in each and every enmity that I feel for a sister or brother. I am challenged by fellow-pacifists who will not wear a poppy or only a white one (I wear both btw): how can I call myself a pacifist and still wear the symbol of the tens of thousands, many unidentified or whose bodies were lost in the mud of Flanders, who fought? And I reply that it is not the fighting that I remember but the pain and death, the waste and the humanity. My own father fought in that first battle of the Somme, was bayonetted and only just managed to avoid being buried in the sucking mud. He never fully recovered and could not bring himself to speak about it, even half-a-century later.
The thousands who died and the memorials to them in every town and village are aconstant reminder to me that we should make every effort to maintain peace. While we permit our leaders to take us, over and again, to war, we are betraying those men and women. We make nonsense of the life-long pain of those millions who lost loved ones; we insult their memory.
THAT is why I attend Remembrance Day services. As so many of our memorials so often say: "Lest We Forget"!
As I get older, the horrors and reality of that war become more significant: the loss of a whole generation of young men, the industrialisation of war. I look at the memorials and I want to weep.
Year by year, as this date comes round and I wear a red poppy, I am challenged in each and every enmity that I feel for a sister or brother. I am challenged by fellow-pacifists who will not wear a poppy or only a white one (I wear both btw): how can I call myself a pacifist and still wear the symbol of the tens of thousands, many unidentified or whose bodies were lost in the mud of Flanders, who fought? And I reply that it is not the fighting that I remember but the pain and death, the waste and the humanity. My own father fought in that first battle of the Somme, was bayonetted and only just managed to avoid being buried in the sucking mud. He never fully recovered and could not bring himself to speak about it, even half-a-century later.
The thousands who died and the memorials to them in every town and village are aconstant reminder to me that we should make every effort to maintain peace. While we permit our leaders to take us, over and again, to war, we are betraying those men and women. We make nonsense of the life-long pain of those millions who lost loved ones; we insult their memory.
THAT is why I attend Remembrance Day services. As so many of our memorials so often say: "Lest We Forget"!
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Thain Wendell MacDowell, VC , DSO (September 16, 1890, Lachute, Quebec – March 27, 1960, Nassau, Bahamas), was a Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
One of four soldiers to earn the Victoria Cross in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, (the others were Ellis Wellwood Sifton, William Johnstone Milne and John George Pattison), MacDowell was 26 years old, and a captain in the 38th (Ottawa) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
On 9 April 1917 at Vimy Ridge, France, Captain MacDowell, with the assistance of two runners (company orderlies, Pvts. James T. Kobus and Arthur James Hay, both of whom were awarded the DCM for their part) reached the German position ahead of his company. After destroying one machine-gun nest he chased the crew from another. MacDowell then spotted one German going into a tunnel. At the base of the tunnel, MacDowell was able to bluff the Germans to think he was part of a much larger force, resulting in the surrendering of two German officers and 75 German soldiers. He sent the prisoners up out the tunnel in groups of 12 so that Kebus and Hay could take them back to the Canadian line. Seeing that he had been fooled, a German prisoner grabbed a rifle and tried to shoot one of the runners. The German was then shot and killed.
Although wounded in the hand, MacDowell continued for five days to hold the position gained, in spite of heavy shellfire, until eventually relieved by his battalion. He was promoted to the rank of Major following his actions at Vimy Ridge. He later achieved the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Frontenac Regiment, Napanee, Ontario.
Yet MacDowell's toughest fight was still to come. It was the battle for his mind, a mind unbalanced by the slaughter he had witnessed in the trenches.
Three months after Vimy, MacDowell, then a 26-year-old captain, went on sick leave. He was sent home to Brockville, suffering from a nervous breakdown. His recovery was as much a testament to his courage as his battlefield exploits.
MacDowell's war service records at the Library and Archives of Canada show that he was diagnosed with "war neurasthenia," or shellshock, brought on by "stress of service and shell fire." One medical report describes him as "high-strung and of a nervous disposition." Another mentions his "depression, insomnia, restlessness, irritability ... sleeps only three hours a night."
It seems likely that MacDowell was in the grip of a characteristic symptom of war neurosis: the battle nightmare. The horrors soldiers had experienced in the war returned to haunt their nights.
Soldiers like MacDowell had to learn that a breakdown was nothing to be ashamed of, that fear was a natural response to the trauma of war -- and that tears were an acceptable part of grieving.
http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/macdowell.html
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7032972
http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/tguide_e.html
http://www.google.ca/search?q=thain+macdowell
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It was an exemplary bit of television, and Daniel Radcliffe (yes, aka Harry Potter) did an absolutely stirling job of filling the role of Rudyard Kipling's doomed 18-year old son, going into battle in the 1st WW.
The man who played Kipling himself, (David Haig) also wrote the screenplay, and has a notable history of his own, but that aside, he was extraordinarily good at portraying the bravado, gung-ho and stiff upper lip temperament so prevalent in England (still maintaining a grip on its Empire) in those days.... a temperament and opinion, shattered by the awful, chilling reality of War that soon filtered back to England, and showed, in grim and desperate detail that War is Hell.
The worst thing is that we seem to have learnt not one blasted thing from History...
Thank you for your post.
The assassination of the Archduke (set up it seems) was just the pretence for the scrap they all wanted and the shadows of that conflict lead to WW2 and the cold war.
Like Simon, the older I get the more it saddens me to think about it. It may be interesting for you to know that the date and time of the ceasefire: 11.11 was not a coincidence. From the German side it has an extra poignance as it marks the start of their traditional celebrations for Martinstag - St. Martin’s Day and was thus a good opportunity to cease hostilities. http://german.about.com/library/blbraeuche_martin.htm
Understanding this just made the whole thing sadder for me. What a tragic waste of life.
I do like to think that these sacrifices are not in vain, that each day we move just a little closer to the point where understanding and equality is a reality, not just a hopeful ideal. In this modern era, the two primary conflicts have brought two different cultures into close contact with each other, enabling us to learn a little more about the other. Perhaps the real battle is "winning the hearts and minds", and not just fighting and bloodshed.