David Levy – Remembrance Day Reflection – Nov 18

Today I took a moment out of my life to reflect on those who I knew who were in the Forces during World War I and II.

All without exception would be horrified by the use of the word heroes which they would not apply to themselves. How times have changed.

My grandfather Taylor was invalided out of the trenches in France with marsh gas infection of a shrapnel wound, he never spoke to his grandson of his experiences and that was equally true of my Uncle Doug who was a Dessert Rat with the 8th Army and had his privates shot off in Italy.

They lived by the code ‘Keep Calm and Get on with it’.

My own father was a teenager and he was blown out of the cable laying ship in the English Channel. He never spoke of it but I always wondered what it was like being in the sea in the dark waiting to be rescued. He was no Mark Spitz and my imagination is fruitful enough to tell me it must have been horrifying.

Has our nation changed so much that we have to glorify every action and tragedy, are we different people to our forebears?

I like to think we are not and the significance of the poppy still remains the same — a nation’s pride in all its fallen soldiers and a mark of its respect.

David Levy

 


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