I spent a bit of the day with the tv on listening to the coverage of the Dawn Services and Marches to commemorate the day. I really do not know why I bothered, it only made me weep for the future.
At one point, the announcer commented on the children in the crowds watching the parade in Melbourne. Her comment was that by waking up early, the children experienced a little bit of what the soldiers did in battle. Really? I've never been a soldier, and I've never been in battle, so I can't say for certain, but I am pretty sure that waking up early is the least of the average soldier's worries, and no doubt fairly far from their minds when actually in battle.
But as bad as that comment was, it was not the saddest indication that the world has devolved too much to save I saw today.
Unfortunately, that award goes to a hashtag I saw courtesy of dearest's Twitter feed. People, and by that I mean significantly more than one ill-informed person, were using the hashtag #LessWeForget. Some people were using the hashtag to poke fun at the people who were actually using it, thinking it was the phrase used for the day. This phenomenon was much sadder than the ABC announcer. I can almost forgive her comment, but I cannot figure out a way to forgive the twitter users.
A couple of years ago, around Veterans' Day (Remembrance Day), I saw a Yahoo article on the premiere of one of the Harry Potter movies. The stars of the film appeared at the premiere wearing red poppy pins, and apparently many people wondered about the pins, and if there was some connection to the film adaptation of the popular books. I worried about that surprising display of ignorance at the time. The overall ignorance of the world has only increased in the intervening years.
- They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
- Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
- They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
- They fell with their faces to the foe.
- 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.
- "For the Fallen," by Laurence Binyon
Lest We Forget.
