Lest we forget
I’ve heard that “history is written by the victors”. But, what about the moments of remembrance?
This evening, on the eve of the centennial of a great battle, CBC presented an excellent documentary about one of the important battles from the Great War, detailing the efforts of Newfoundland soldiers at the battle of Beaumont-Hamel. A deeply moving recall of events that are now beyond the memory of anyone who actually participated in the living hell of that trench war.
One day can change the destiny of a nation. For Newfoundland, they lost the generation that should have been there to lead them in the times before Confederation in 1949. To be fair, if they had survived, that change in their political direction might well have never occurred.
We learned that, despite the bravery of thousands, a handful of stubborn (and frankly, stupid) leaders can cause more damage than that handful would ever realize or accept. Doing things “the old way” because that was their mindset, not because the situation demanded it. I’ll admit that I’m not schooled in wartime history, but this documentary went beyond, to explain how the then-labelled “shell shock” has earned a new acronym: PTSD. No less deadly, but perhaps more familiar to those of the modern nomenclature.
A .daughter of a friend is now at the site, working to interpret the importance for tourists seeking to visit “yet another battlefield”. Perhaps she’ll help them to realize that battles are important to the survivors and descendants; the motto “Lest we forget” takes on new meaning. For more information: Newfoundland At Armageddon.
