Today is Remembrance Day, a day I hold close to my heart.
I am working today and could not make it to the cenotaph in Hamilton’s Gore Park. My workplace marked the minute of silence and read a passage from For The Fallen over the intercom:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
I think of those I knew who didn’t return from Afghanistan and realise the meanings of those words more so than I did as a younger man. I remember them as young men, as I knew one of them in 2003 as large numbers of already-Afghanistan veterans gathered in the Mess Hall at 8:30pm Atlantic Time to watch Jeopardy over drinks.
Age shall not weary them and we will remember them.