More Than A Name On A Wall
I put a song in the music group that was titled as above.
I posted it because the title made me remember standing in front of the WWII monument in Maryhill, Glasgow with my father, aged about 8, and him pointing out a name and telling me to always remember it.
The name was that of his older cousin who went down with HMS Hood.
He also pointed out, from the WWI monument on the other side 3 names. These were older relatives who died in that conflict. Again he said “Remember”.
I have never forgotten.
Over the years of my service I have added other names.
Since then I have heard other names of the lost that I have added to the list of those to be remembered.
It’s quite a long list now. Some were lost in combat. Some later, but all were the victims of war in one way or another.
I feel no hatred for the lost. They died doing what they believed in, just as those who killed them did so believing in their cause.
If I can do that. If I can accept and feel no hate for those who killed family, friends, mates, why can’t others?
While no-one is just a name on a wall, vengeance, retribution is what fuels the constant wars and deaths we see year after year on this blue planet we all live on.
Forgive? No! Forget? No! But to continue it down the generations. Repeating the same errors and the same deaths, generation after generation is wrong. So damned wrong!
One day we will learn, I hope, that if we do not learn from history’s lessons then we are doomed to repeat that history.
If I am very, very lucky I may live to see that day.
But I doubt it.
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Way…So very touching, so well written, so moving. Very sad that wars continue.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
I agree with you Way – payback never ends and just keeps on hurting. Someone said “an eye for an eye” only makes us blind!!!! Great post xoxoxox
Way this moved me to tears xxxx
Way really well written blog and yes there are names on our cross as we call it in town of family members but hatred will never cure wars.I just wish that these wars would end.
I thought this was so moving and sincere, Waylander. The son of my great aunt and uncle went down in the Hood, and it seems they never got over his loss. People talk about ‘just wars’ but I don’t believe in the concept, all wars mean the death of young people and a huge waste.
To read the inscription ‘To our Glorious Dead’ on war memorials sickens me.
It is also very hard to look at the nation they fought and give their lives for, and have to try to address the question ” how did it get like this? or “what did they die for”
This is where,as always,politicians have the blood on their hands.
Within your sentence of ” vengeance,retribution is what fuels war”, you unwittingly named the other…..oil.
Not unwittingly. Before oil it was coal. Before coal there was another excuse and another and another and………………………