Subject: D-Day
The 75th D day remembrance ceremonies have passed and with them many memorable pictures of old men standing to attention, medals strewn across their frail chests to signal the battles they fought in and the heroic acts they performed. Mention has been made of the fact that this might be the last time we see these veterans, many in their late 90s, a few over one hundred years old. The enduring theme which one was left with was the almost complete lack of self awareness in the part they played in rescuing us, the later generations from the scourge of fascism. In a world of celebrity there was no sense of their own celebrity in fact the opposite as they repeatedly shuffled off the praise heaped on their shoulders and spoke only of their comrades who didn't come back.
The young reporter who drew the comparison between his own relatively frivolous life at eighteen, his main concern was having a good time and these young lads on the landing craft who were heading for who knows what. The carnage on the beach, the minutes which must have seemed like a lifetime as the bullets brought down men to the right and the left, when was the bullet with his name on it due to strike. The sardonic humour which kept them cheerful would be deemed, none PC today as we now wrap ourselves in the infantile.
Kids amongst men, drafted in to arms to defeat an enemy which our leaders determined needed killing. Never having killed anything they were thrust into the cauldron of battle kitted out in a rough kharki uniform, with a 303 rifle on their shoulder having paraded up the quay onto their landing craft, in the peace and quiet of an English port, then to be faced with seasickness as these ungainly craft bounced there way across the choppy seas of the channel and finally released as the ramp dropped to expose them to murderous machine gun fire and what we call, War.
It's been a fine remembrance of the many who died and the few who survive. The speeches from our leaders were scripted in the way speeches are but I was very impressed with Theresa Mays reading of the last letter to his family from a man who was about to die. Hers were words of connective feeling as she captured his own words. Her delivery and sincerity was head and shoulders above the others as she brought alive the pathos, the poignancy of the letter and one felt a deep respect for her as our Prime Minister in this final chapter of her troubled leadership. She was given a poison chalice by David Cameron and her own personality didn't help but as a vicars daughter she was more in her element here and she represented us perfectly.
The 75th D day remembrance ceremonies have passed and with them many memorable pictures of old men standing to attention, medals strewn across their frail chests to signal the battles they fought in and the heroic acts they performed. Mention has been made of the fact that this might be the last time we see these veterans, many in their late 90s, a few over one hundred years old. The enduring theme which one was left with was the almost complete lack of self awareness in the part they played in rescuing us, the later generations from the scourge of fascism. In a world of celebrity there was no sense of their own celebrity in fact the opposite as they repeatedly shuffled off the praise heaped on their shoulders and spoke only of their comrades who didn't come back.
The young reporter who drew the comparison between his own relatively frivolous life at eighteen, his main concern was having a good time and these young lads on the landing craft who were heading for who knows what. The carnage on the beach, the minutes which must have seemed like a lifetime as the bullets brought down men to the right and the left, when was the bullet with his name on it due to strike. The sardonic humour which kept them cheerful would be deemed, none PC today as we now wrap ourselves in the infantile.
Kids amongst men, drafted in to arms to defeat an enemy which our leaders determined needed killing. Never having killed anything they were thrust into the cauldron of battle kitted out in a rough kharki uniform, with a 303 rifle on their shoulder having paraded up the quay onto their landing craft, in the peace and quiet of an English port, then to be faced with seasickness as these ungainly craft bounced there way across the choppy seas of the channel and finally released as the ramp dropped to expose them to murderous machine gun fire and what we call, War.
It's been a fine remembrance of the many who died and the few who survive. The speeches from our leaders were scripted in the way speeches are but I was very impressed with Theresa Mays reading of the last letter to his family from a man who was about to die. Hers were words of connective feeling as she captured his own words. Her delivery and sincerity was head and shoulders above the others as she brought alive the pathos, the poignancy of the letter and one felt a deep respect for her as our Prime Minister in this final chapter of her troubled leadership. She was given a poison chalice by David Cameron and her own personality didn't help but as a vicars daughter she was more in her element here and she represented us perfectly.
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