Memento Mori

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At the stroke of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns of the First World War fell silent.

It was not to be “the War to End all Wars” - somehow human beings can't stop killing each other - but ever since, 11 November (called Armistice Day in the UK) has stood as a Day of Remembrance.

Soldiers don’t start wars. Governments and nations start wars and then get soldiers to do the fighting and dying for them. So today we do not only remember those who fought and fell for “our side”, but all soldiers in all wars everywhere, who either made the ultimate sacrifice, or returned physically or mentally damaged.

Lest we forget....  – AMB


The Unknown Soldier

We had no cause to hate him;
A chap like you and me,
With a mother, or a sweetheart,
Or a wife, or p’raps all three.
He’d trained as hard as we had,
His orders were the same:
Rout and kill your “enemy”.
Obliterate his name!

Then Mars put us on different sides
Of that field so far away,
And Fortune sealed that I, not he,
Would fight another day.
It wasn’t like a rugby match
Where the better team had won.
There wasn’t any glory
And it wasn’t any fun.

Just an emptiness that settled
In a corner of each soul
As all men breathed, and tallied-up
The losses on the roll.
No ringing-out of trumpets,
But laments of sweat and smoke;
And I still wonder every day,
'Bout the name of that poor bloke.

They litter fields around the world
Under headstone, cross or tell;
Names and bodies cast awry
By the blast of every shell.
As we remember those we lost,
The sacrifice they gave,
Spare a thought within our hearts
For those whose who know no grave. - AMB


History often simply glosses over the fact that nations from around the world were drawn into the firestorm as Europe tried to obliterate itself.

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