Remembrance

Remembrance Sunday is this coming week-end and as we all know it is a sad day indeed. When, one looks at the figures of United Kingdom men and women, who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. It is completely mind blowing. During the 1914-18 War some 886,342 lost their lives. In the Second World War from 1939-45, 383,667 U.K. men and women lost their lives. The various conflicts since 1945 to this present day, 3,739 U.K. men and women have lost their lives.
The overall total since 1914, who paid with their lives for you and me to live in a better world, is 1.273748. I get very angry when I hear a person say they are ashamed of being British over some very minor incident. Obviously they are not in the real world. I again say that the Remembrance to the fallen and the injured, during the conflicts concerning United Kingdom service personnel, should be taught at school. When, young people wear the remembrance poppy. They must have the knowledge of what the British Men and women before them endured in those conflicts.
All ex and present service men and women have their own memories of Remembrance Day. I have mine. It was November 1960. I, along with the platoons of(S) Company King’s Own Royal Border Regiment and men of Ex-King’s African Rifles, who had served in Burma. We all marched through the local village then into a large grassy area in a valley, where the remembrance service was performed. High up on one side of the valley walls there was a small plateau. It was from here a bugler of our regiment appeared. He beautifully played the last post and the sound echoed loudly down the valley. I had a sensational feeling in the back of my neck which is hard to explain. That moment in time has lived with me ever since.
I hope for the sake of this great country of ours. The future generations to come, will remember the sacrifice that was paid by their fellow countrymen.
Alan