Word of the day

Peace – freedom from disturbance; tranquillity; a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended; societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence; calm and quiet; freedom from worry or annoyance; a stress-free state of security and calmness that comes when there’s no fighting or war.

Sowell says

There is no concession that will bring lasting peace to the Middle East, because the terrorists and their supporters are not going to be satisfied by concessions. The only thing that will satisfy them is the destruction of Israel.

— Thomas Sowell Wisdom (@TheThomasSowell) November 7, 2023

When the guns fell silent

When the guns fell silent.#ArmisticeDay #WeWillRememberThem pic.twitter.com/Ojs6ygpsaf

— Koen van Wijk (@KJvanWijk) November 11, 2022

They shall grow not old . . .

France and Belgium are home to immaculately kept cemeteries, tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), where those killed in the two World Wars now lie.

Some headstones bear the names of the dead, others mark the graves of those not able to be identified and have the inscription known unto God.

Visiting the cemeteries is both humbling and sobering – so many lives, most of them young, lost so far from home.

In Ypres, every night since 1928, the Last Post is played.

When I told one of the men who is part of the ceremony that theirs was an amazing tribute, he replied that nothing they do could be compared with what the people they are remembering did for them.

Last month the New Zealand Liberation Museum opened in Le Quesnoy, dedicated to the men who freed the town from German occupation in 1918.

It too brings home the high price paid by so many.

Looking at the peaceful countryside around the cemeteries we can only imagine just how terrible the conditions those who fought endured.

So many didn’t survive to grow old.

It is both frustrating, and tragic, that today 105 years after the war that was supposed to end all wars concluded, peace is allusive in so many other places and so many others shall grow not old.

Saturday soapbox

Saturday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. – Joseph Campbell