Yesterday was VE Day. I was 15 months old at the time. The funny thing is that somehow it has affected who I am today. In fact if you take a long hard look, it has affected all of us. Once upon a time, it seems in another life, I had to write an essay about “The Just War Theory.” The only problem was that it probably muddled my thinking more than ever. Along with my contemporaries I grew up in bleak and austere post-war Britain. Our thinking was coloured by recent anniversaries of things like Auschwitz, the Blitz and rationing. Growing up, there was a diet of war films – not the gritty realism of The Pacific or Schindler’s List, but near-propaganda to bolster up a sense of right that was a total anathema to the generations following. Nonetheless, I want to cry when I see the shrinking ranks of veterans at the Cenotaph. Don’t ask me to explain it. It just is.
Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the WWII generation I helped to bury; saying the words at funerals is not the same as feeling their sense of bewilderment and pain. Today, I can’t help feeling that we need to think seriously about the values of our near ancestors, as well as trying to correct the wrongs and right the injustices.
So – as a tribute and as hope for the future…….. a photo of the blossom that never fails to make me smile each year.
Your sentence about the generation you helped to bury is so poignant. Sensing their bewilderment and pain while also considering their values, even in hindsight, sounds rational and fair. I hope kids are discussing these things in school.
I think we do not want to understand those that went before us until we are their age and suddenly that history we realize made us and we think differently.
I think they are, at least to a certain extent. I’ve been asked questions by the grandchildren in connection with projects on the World Wars. I’m not sure though whether it goes far enough with regard to how the older-old actually feel.
“The truth is that each of us has an affect on those nearest to us. We give or receive a cup of water…..and that is enough.”
As I have found a welcome cup of water in your blog, I hope there may be one in my blog for you to find. There is a poem in my blog in the March posts titled ‘Shades of light’ about giving a cup of water.
I regret I did not capture my father’s wartime memories. He did not talk at length about his WWII experiences in the Philippines. There is so much I would like to know but now that opportunity is no longer available. About those “greatest generation” values: Many of those he passed along. But character refined by the challenges, responsibilities and terrors of those times, that cannot be transmitted. Thank you for sharing in a moving post.
I feel the same about all my family from the previous generations. I guess that urge comes to us at different times in life, but sadly it is often too late.
Thanks for visiting my blog, I have found a treasure in yours and will visit regularly.
Just what I was thinking. Oh for the knowledge that comes with age when we could do with it.