Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Silence.


Remembrance Day is a bit quieter this year. As the world marks the 91st anniversary of the end of the First World War, only three veterans of the conflict are believed to survive: British seaman Claude Choules, Canadian serviceman John Babcock, and American doughboy Frank Buckles. The last surviving British veteran lives in Australia, so this will be the first year that official commemorations of Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom have not included any veterans of the Great War. To learn more about today's events in Britain, read these stories in the Times, the Independent, and the Guardian.

As the silence observed on Remembrance Day grows slightly more profound, I pray that the world will not forget the lessons that those who fought in the First World War and the other conflicts of the past century have to teach us. As we pause to remember all who served in these wars - both those who died in the midst of conflict and those who survived - I hope and pray that we who remember may also commit ourselves more strongly to the task of working for peace in a world that remains torn by conflict. AMDG.

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