Remembering

I wonder what Remembrance Day will be like when we no longer have our WW2 vets to totter out and make us all think about the horror of the trenches. We are supposed to remember so that it will never happen again - a war so encompassing that the deaths are measured in millions, that the great nations of the world throw themselves at one another and the impact is felt for generations.

The thing is, I don't think there will be another World War. We are afraid of terrorists now, not dictators. The possibility of nuclear weapons is still there, but not the obliterating exchange between Soviets and Americans that threatened everyone. So what should Remembrance Day mean to us now, more than half a century removed from the Bulge and Vimy and Auschwitz?

We have at least been meticulous in our recordings. The catalogue of WW2 books and movies and photos is vast and detailed. We remain endlessly fascinated by it, the drama and the brave stand against resisting Hitler's evil. Has any war, before or since, had that perfect rightness? The story we tell ourselves is that of heroes. Of doing what was right, at terrible cost.

I wonder, in a world filled with ambiguity, if we will ever tell that story again.