Dear Alan,

I agree. But we're not honouring war - but our
veterans. And I'm sure that you'll agree they
deserve to be honoured.

Thumbs up to all of that Plantagenet...

Thanks diver

Pete

Absolutely agree with that Foxy. And Pete.

Even so, nobody wins in any war. Countless lives were wasted or ruined in WW11, to stop a madman from taking the world by force of arms and continuing the slaughter of an entire race.

I honour the brave men that fought in that war, which cost me 13 of my blood relatives. 12 during the conflict, the last run over by a double-decker bus two weeks after his return when he walked in front of a bus.

Vietnam was not popular on so many fronts. First, because politicians decided they knew more than their generals. Second because they equated Buddhism with communism and treated them as if they were one and the same. Foisted a corrupt minority government on the Vietnamese. And in so doing, forced neighbouring Buddhist nations, Cambodia and Laos offside with the allies and onside with the communist "liberators".

Finally after the Tiet offensive. which exhausted Charlie. there should have been a counter-offensive all the way to Hanoi. Instead, the yanks turned tail and ran deserting their alleged allies.

But only after they wasted more young GI lives than they spent during the entire length (theirs) of the WW11 campaign. And where raw barely trained troops were used as bait to flush out Charlie.

So forgive me for seeing warfare as a wasteful absurdity as we watch history repeat itself. The next war (and there will be one) will be fought by machines where the civilians will be the prime targets.

And for what? Scarce water and arable land? And only because, willfully blind politicians refuse to accept or adopt the widespread rollout of the very thing that could put endless reliable energy in every hand and with it, endless reliable water that alone will reverse desertification, return the deserts to the granaries and forests they once were and allow as many as 50 million droughts displaced refugees to return to their places of birth.

Without question only gormless visionless, self-serving politicians stand between us and a world at peace at last!
Alan B.

Dear Alan,

I don't think that anyone will disagree with your
take on how destructive war is. My parents lost
their country, most of their family, their worldly
goods, their social position, everything - during
WWII when they fled from the Soviet Regime.

I also fear that our world can become so
obsessed with the problems of hatred and aggression,
that it will allow peace and love to be regarded
as soft and weak. Yet our survival depends on their
dominance.

A time to remember and think of those that did not return.
My Uncle, George Butcher, died at the Battle of Polygon Wood near Ypes
in Belgium. He has no known grave.
I had the honor to visit the Menin Gate and see his name on the wall there.
The Local Fire Brigade every evening at 6pm since 1922 and hold a
ceremony and play the last post. A very moving occasion.

Of course I never knew him being born many years later as my mother
was George Butcher's little sister. She often spoke of him.
My father was in an adjacent battle field at the same time and was
wounded there. He was lying on the ground when two German soldiers
came by, picked him up and carried him into the Australian lines.

While grieving them we need to also grieve for the families they never had.
They are not often counted in the cost of war.