Bob

I usually struggle to find things to write about, but today I have more of a problem with what not to use. I have always been fascinated by war, not uncommon for a boy whose toys were mostly solders or guns and who read war stories or watched war film for entertainment. As I have got older I came to see both the horror and the glory of war, old soldiers will tell you there is no glory in war, but how else can you describe the examples of courage and selflessness displayed by individual soldiers and units on all side and in all conflicts. Over the years I have read 100s of first hand accounts of combat from all the major wars of the last century, and in amidst the horror and death there are always moments of bravery and humour as mans sprit tries to offset all the negatives that surround him. War in all its forms is a failure of reason and shows us at our worst, but in war we can also find our best, the freedoms we now have and hold so cheaply, are soaked in the blood of our fallen. As Wellington so rightly said “Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won.”
The picture today is of Caz’s grand dads medals, these are not special medals, there are none here issued for individual acts of courage, but they represent 5 years of combat from Africa to D-day, through France and into Germany, with nearly every day offering the chance of it being his last, I don’t think that we can imagine 5 years of that, never knowing when or how it will end. After the war he came home and started a new life, bringing up his children and doing his job and living to a grand old age. These aren’t special medals, but they belong to a special man, the sort of hero that will never be featured in a film or book but gave the world his life for as long as it took so that we could have ours in peace and freedom.



----------------
Now playing: Ludwig van Beethoven - 'Moonlight' Sonata
via FoxyTunes