Lest We Forget - Lee Patrick Wilson

It has been a whole lifetime since the two World Wars have ended and still the outcome of these merciless wars of Modern Man continues to influence our daily lives & our entire way of living throughout the 20th Century into the 21st Century and new Millennium. Even someone born today is affected by the outcomes & innovations of the Wars fought in the first half of the 20th Century, such was the significance of the great struggles faced by our relatives & ancestors in humanities fight for the future; for power & liberty, revolution & order, technology, good & evil and life & death.

My ancestors & family like many people’s ancestors & families suffered loss in World War Two and before that World War One. They suffered absence of time away from loved ones for years at a time and for a many more for the rest of their lives due to death & mourning caused by murderous intent on an industrial scale. My great grandfathers both fought in World War 2 in the British Army and their parents before them in World War 1. In WW2 one was a dispatch rider and the other a mechanic based in Africa both where fortunate enough to survive the war. My Great Uncle was killed in WW2 when serving for the Navy, his ship was torpedoed by a Nazi Uboat, he was 21 years old. I cannot imagine how he suffered and the grief this caused his parents and family.

Thanks to theirs and millions of others sacrifice and bravery 74 years and 101 years later we are here living a relatively free life and still remember, honor and imagine the hopelessness of the situation humanity faced in these dark years of war and human suffering.

I ask myself how long will it take for these terrible wars to fade from our collective human psyche & memory? As living memory diminishes every day from the world, as the now aged surviving men and women of the war generations come to pass and with every passing year humanities memories of the sacrifice, pain & suffering of the wars weakens until the wars ultimately become tales of a land fought long ago somewhere in time with no real context to Modern Man. Until eventually a tipping point is reached and the weight of the scales changes instead of been weighted for the relative peace, stability & togetherness that the war generation fought so tirelessly to maintain in the post war years, the autumn & winter season of mass war and strife ends as the last of the war generation and baby boomers are laid to rest and a new spring begins, of mass war and suffering, perhaps it has already begun?

For this project I aim to pay homage to & keep alive a memory of my own family and Ancestors contribution & sacrifice to Modern Man; to myself and my children; to allow us to live the free and plentiful lives that we have so far experienced, whilst also remembering the millions of people affected by these wars, remembering the times, the suffering, the despair, the hope, the bravery, the loss and pain to ensure we do not forget. I hope that in even the smallest way my project will help us to remember, both now and for generations later, in the hope that we don’t forget as I fear if we do a new season of war & suffering will inevitably follow and we can stop this recurrence by simply remembering and allowing this memory to influence or day to day behavior, speech and decisions, to ensure we never forget the consequence of hatred & war against our fellow man;

Imagine now, today your wife or husband, sons & daughters, brothers & sisters, mothers & fathers, family, friends, workmates and neighbors, our lives, hopes & dreams been put on hold for years at a time with uncertainty if peace, stability, freedom & loved ones would ever return, faced with unrelenting war and an enemy intent on your destruction.

Imagine young men, our sons, brothers and fathers in their prime as young as 15 years old duped into a war of bravery and valor, killing for king and country, those who choose not to fight shamed, stigmatized & marginalized, the willing going away to war behind waves of celebration and excitement, street parties and hero’s send offs, only to face a new industrial battleground of despair, fought in trenches filled with men & boys, water, rats and death. Sprayed lines of lead fired relentlessly from machine guns, snipers bullet, poison gas, shell bombardment, fire & flame all causing terror, death, pain and suffering. Living in row after row of trenches deep within the ground, digging & living, advancing and retreating, forced over the top under punishment of death from your fellow countryman, fighting, gaining and then losing ground again and again, land won and lost, yard by yard, mile by mile, life by life, in a manmade Hell on earth, entire villages and towns of young men wiped out in minutes, an industrial culling of the population in the name of national pride and sovereignty.

Imagine been sent away to War, by air land and sea not knowing if you would survive the day or be killed by an unknown mortal enemy intent on your destruction. Knowing if you don’t succeed and win at all costs then all is lost for you and your family at home as the enemy is determined to dominate, conquer, rule and control all lands and people, hearts & minds or destroy them.

Imagine at home not knowing if you would survive the night for fear of bombing from above or find enough food to feed you and your children as the blitz and battle of Britain waged on. Not knowing if your husband, sons and fathers would ever return whilst spending years apart in the new dawn that is your life.

Imagine your homes, streets, villages, towns and cities been occupied by an unrelenting ruthlessly violent enemy whom force their laws, beliefs and themselves over you and your people. If you resist in any way your met by a force so extreme you and your entire family will be taken away never to be seen again. Innocent Families and children lay in hiding under floor boards and lofts spaces as the enemy searches them out intent on their eradication because they are a minority who honor their culture and in doing so are different from the main population.

Imagine in your country, occupied and controlled in a seemingly never ending war, in your quiet street or village, nearby a person resists and in retribution the enemy gathers together you and your neighbours lock you in your church or community building, seal you in, dowse the building with fuel setting fire to the building whilst spraying anyone who leaves with gunfire.

Imagine in your home towns & cities been stigmatized, ridiculed and hated by your own government and communities, forced to identify yourself as separate to your neighbours & friends, been removed forcibly first to ghettos and later to concentration camps along with everyone you ever loved and cared for, every bit of your culture, all evidence of you and your families & peoples existence been taken away from you, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, person by person, family by family, hundreds at a time, then thousands & then millions as your destruction becomes your governments manufacture. At first chipping away at your identity & culture, isolating you by blood and belief, then attacking yourself worth, your rights & freedoms, then taking away your property & possessions, next tearing you away from your children, parents and partners, herding you like cattle into groups of strong and weak, those who aren’t fit enough for work, children & the aged, disabled and sick killed by gunshot and later gas on an industrial scale, the survivors held in cages, worked and starved over, again and again until the need to kill is removed as work & starvation slowly take the lives of the strong until all hope is lost, not knowing if liberty will ever come, hoping and praying for salvation. Hoping that God or someone, anyone would free you from the suffering of you and the people around you.

Imagine facing the enemy in the final front gunfire on beaches sailing the short North Sea channel advancing against the fortified enemy, leaping from airplanes behind enemy lines into skies filled with lead, fighting in deserts against inhuman tanks, bravely resisting & pushing the enemy back from your homeland in harsh Russian winters, aerially bombarding a city filled with women and children so intensely that the entire city burns, flying a plane loaded with a new age weapon so destructive that in two blasts in an instant two cities & their people would be obliterated and the world would change forever, now with all known life in the balance as a great arms race would ensue.

The level of cruelty it would take for such scenarios is unimaginable and yet they happened in the not so distance past to real people like you and I and unless we remember these tragic unthinkable outrages of the past and fight for our human rights and civil liberties it could happen again at any time. The only people who can stop this recurrence is us, every day by not harboring or encouraging hatred against any culture, group or person, by ensuring our governments respect our individuality and singular rights, as if we allow one person’s human rights to be diminished we risk all people suffering the same fate, just as the poor people of the past once suffered as the season of death and war returns, the cost of our ignorance;

Lest We Forget

28th July 1914 to 11th November1918 40 million People killed or wounded

1st September1939 to 2nd September1945 85 Million People killed or wounded

And all the wars and conflict before and afterwards