Me really.

Recent= a few days if anyone is interested.

The problem as ever is that remembrance is noting that people died. It started out if the documentary on BBC2 last week is accurate, as celebrating how good we were at war. By the end of the second world war it had become a way of saying how fed up people are with war and killing. Commemorating subsequent conflict therefore is valid as the men dying now are not pushing an imperialist agenda, not protecting our shores from invasion and not making Col Blimp look good.

They are dying trying to protect innocent civilians from conflict in a humanitarian gesture in most cases. Very different from the gung ho jingoism the Tommies were bombarded with from the despatch box, from the pulpits, from the Kitchener posters, from the marches through their towns and villages followed by the recruiting sergeants.

Remembrance is about death. Whether the fallen believed in their cause or not. Attempts to say it is only about those who saw reason in war is a bit much. Especially for the millions caught up in it.