Lest We Forget: Never in the History of Mankind has so much been Owed by so Many to so Few ^Featured

It is peculiar the way in which war shows up humanities true potential- our potential for inspiring heroics, incredible bravery and selflessness as a soldier runs under enemy fire to save a comrade, or throws himself atop a grenade to save his fellow man. It shows our resilience and ability to re-establish ourselves after near total destruction. It exhibits our capabilities of limitless innovation and technological progression; the creation of things that do great good and great harm: medical marvels that go on to save millions and atomic bombs that kill scores and continue to haunt the world. It also highlights our darker sides; our capabilities of unnerving cruelty and senseless violence, of destruction and brutality- concentration camps and the murder of innocents; poison gases that dissolve a man’s lungs and incendiary bombs that burn through his flesh.

Last week we were taken on a tour of DC’s various monuments. Amongst them were various war memorials: the WWII memorial, the Vietnam War memorial and the Korean War memorial. Goose bumps prickled my skin as I stood reading the inscriptions chiselled into the stone of the WWII memorial. My throat constricted with a rising of emotion.

I was confused with the lack of solemnity, respect and gratitude with which people afforded the structures and what they represented. I suppose my reaction comes however as a result of my upbringing: having grown up in a family whose lives were affected in various ways by the wars of this century, WWII in particular, I have been raised with the knowledge of and the utmost respect for the sacrifices made by the ordinary people of the world and the things that they had to endure in the fight for freedom.

My grandmother has recited her tales of living through the war to me throughout my life. We often spend hours talking about little else. And I am genuinely interested. Her stories can light up a room. (And then put it to sleep as they continue unrelenting; “to make a long story short” is generally a sign of a long session!) She met a man, fell in love and then sent him off to War in North Africa and Italy. He fought the Axis in the desserts of El-Alamein and in the Italian countryside at Casino: thankfully he returned, not in a box, and they were married. He went on to become a Major, Commandant (Commanding Officer) of the Natal Carbineer’s and a thorn in the side of the Nationalist Government.

But around 60 million people did not return. 60 million people left their homes and their families during that terrible interlude and never saw them again.

My father’s side of the family suffered this reality of the war. His mother’s two brothers, aged just 20 and 21, were killed. Robert served with the 6^th Duke of Connaught’s own Lancers, under the Indian Armoured corps and Donald in the Royal Artillery. Robert was decorated for bravery and had earned a military cross. The citation for its presentation reads as follows: “At ROSELLO on 13^th November 1943 Lieutenant MACLEAY was in charge of a small dismounted patrol ordered to raid the village and to try obtain identification of the enemy. The village was several miles behind the enemy F.D.L’s and, after successfully evading numerous enemy patrols by lying up throughout the day, he entered the village with his patrol at 16:00 hours. Lieutenant MACLEAY himself engaged with a Thompson Sub Machine Gun two Germans who suddenly came out of a house, wounding one and capturing the other, in spite of considerable fire opened on him and his men from nearby houses. A motor-cycle combination then came in and attacked the party, but by the skilful handling of his party Lieut. MACLEAY was able not only to inflict casualties on the enemy, but to break off contact and withdraw his patrol without loss to themselves, while still retaining the prisoner. This officer showed great courage and gallantry, and obtained valuable information of enemy movements, dispositions and identifications”.

In Matric my final art project dealt with the issue of war and the need to remember the sacrifices made by those who are involved in it. The picture below is my painting of Rossello Cemetery in Italy where Robert is buried. It was inspired by the above things and by the annual Remembrance Day service held in our school chapel, during which the names of the 148 old boys who have died in the numerous wars waged since 1872 are read out and remembered, even for a fleeting second, as their names, spoken for a moment, echo and fade away in the rafters. For many this was a boring and somewhat irritating affair and that really riled and bothered me.

It is imperative that we remember what happened. The outcomes of a fascist Nazi victory of WWII are unthinkable. The evils of Apartheid would likely pale in comparison to what the Nazis would have done. But millions of people united from around the globe to fight for freedom. Men and woman our age and younger gave up the most important years of their lives to fight for what they believed was right: knowing full well that there was a good chance that they would die, but fighting because they knew that defeating Fascism was a cause worth dying for. Some 344 000 South Africans, black and white, were amongst them.

“And we who see should not forget that in this soldier's final debt
And sacrifice for duty's sake, it is the loved ones who must take
The hurt, to bear as best they can, and face a future lesser than
The one they dreamed in bygone years, now to regard with bitter tears,
Reflecting, as time intervenes, on thoughts of how it might have been.

But in their grief there's quiet pride that loved ones bravely fought and died
Believing in a worthy goal which helps give solace, and consoles
By knowing that the loss they bear is shared by all our peoples where
In gratitude, their names will be forever honoured, guaranteed
To be remembered and enshrined, beyond the shifting sands of time.”

-Tony Church

People bemoan the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I do too. But take it out on the politicians. Take it out on the provocateurs. Do not snub the people that fight in them: they do so with a belief that what they are doing is right. Afterwards (as with Vietnam and Iraq) we may learn that the reasons for these conflicts are disingenuous. But hindsight is a luxury. It is easy to sit in a free and safe world (relatively) and judge these wars. We did not have planes flying into our skyscrapers. We cannot understand the deep feelings of insecurity and helplessness that being attacked by terrorists must elicit.

As much as these monuments are for us to remember, they are there for the men and women who fought in these battles and were affected by them – from all Wars. The veterans. Their wives. Their children. Their parents. For them to remember the friends and family that they lost. To know that what they did for us is appreciated. To know that their sacrifices are not forgotten.

So I implore you: remember them. Do not forget. Learn from history, and do not let it repeat itself. Respect these men and woman: remnants of the conflicts and horrors brought about by humanities darkest side.

Harbingers (from Normandy)

Frail, old men with weathered hands stand,
Alone, lost on the wide sandy beaches,
Each turning back his rusty mind clock
Piercing the veil of memories
When they were young, anxious and terrified,
Boy-soldiers in battle fighting for their lives,
Experiencing the gamut of fear and death
Watching friends died horribly,
Scarring their young minds.forever.

Blue beaches murmur waves
Splashing old, rusted war remnants.
A sea bird flaps wet beaches
Where the sea swells and crashes gently on wet sand,
Retreating back erasing all footprints.
The men stare the distance,
At blurred memories through  tears.
Trickling down their cheeks dripping softly,
To merge with the sea like before.

They came to say good-bye to their friends,
To a confused past which has no answers.
The graveyard crosses watch in stony silence,
Stoically from tree shadows on soft meadows,
In eternal military formation fronted by small, flags,
Wind-shivering in the hush of silence.
Marching the stillness in quiet precision
Protecting the young soldiers buried there,
Frozen in time and death
The old veterans stand awkward, unsure with the dead.
Experiencing those familiar, dreaded, sick feelings
Of remorse, regret, blame, and fault for what happened
To their generation who gave so much for their country.
They have gathered one final time
To share history, blame and guilt for all eternity
Banding together as one, they embrace the moment,
Experiencing once more, this terrible place of
memories.

And the same salt sea air, still blows up from the beach
Once inhaled in panic by all the young fighting men
Mired in the beach mud conducting the senseless slaughter of children,
Trapped forever in the obscenity and vulgarity of war,
The pain returns for a moment, overwhelming them,
It hangs suspended, as real as yesterday, then drifts away and mellows away.
Now time, history, and denial blessedly blur the horror and inhumanity
Of what they did; of what was done to them.

The War President from America
Mounts the podiums to prattle the virtues of war,
Attempting to rewrite history, to deny war's reality,
He exploits the moment for selfish means,
To justify his war as a noble cause, ignoring its brutality,
Thoughtlessly attempting to validate, substantiate, and authenticate,

War's vicious crimes against civilization
Turning the senseless slaughter of innocents
Into a righteous cause, to be proud of and condone.
Turning war into a sound-bite of empty words
Of praise, blessing, glory, and accomplishment.
Something to be proud of, to revel in,
To relish with sacred, biblical rhetoric
From a shallow, self-centered political opportunist.
Whose meanings and oratory become quickly lost,
His words floating away with the wind, out of relevance, out of touch
Out of context, drifting, beyond the restive crowds.
To fall useless and disappear, in the cold, impassionate mud.
Falling deaf on the ears of the dead warriors
The ultimate, wasted sacrifice, from another generation

It is at this moment, the old veterans
Eyes mist up, overflow, and tears flow shamelessly

As they at last comprehend all their sacrifice, all their pain,
All their sorrow, all their suffering, all the death,
Did not change or alter a thing, was not a lesson learned
Nor an experience not to be repeated..
Realizing their friend's painful, brutal, ultimate sacrifice
Was only a necessary evil of Mankind's political process
Which has never changed, and never will,
For each generation brings anew to the world
Its own self-styled madness of universal death, tragedy and suffering,
In wars to be fought by the young, bright-eyed children of the world
Unknowingly raised as sacrificial lambs of slaughter,
To be killed and gone forever, for nothing.
That is why, all Veterans cry.

In this hallowed place of the dead
The lonely graves of war's youthful victims
Who died for a thought,
an idea, for a cause
Promulgated by selfish, insane men in power
These war graves and cemeteries are Harbingers
Of the eternal, mindless death cycle of war.
Young men killed by politicians' words and mindless acts,
Their promise and existence forever ended too soon.
Now, forever sleep beneath the green muffled grass
Sharing the earth with the youth and victims of past wars,
Too numerous to count, to numbing to contemplate,
The dead, as powerless and impotent as the now living
To change or alter, or detour the inexorable course of madmen,
They patiently wait for the next generation to join them.

Curtis D. Bennett