Remembrance Sunday 2007

This year we have been remembering the 25th anniversary of the short but violent Falklands War. Although of nothing like the scale of the first and second world wars, many gave their lives on those very distant, hitherto almost unheard of, islands for the same causes of freedom and justice. Harry Bagnall, a resident of Port Stanley, remembers the battle raging over his town:

But the initial excitement we had felt over the shelling, the surge of expectation at each whoosh and crunch, had given way to a constant sorrow at the deaths and woundings that were happening. It had been a long catalogue of grief that had brought us to this point – necessary, but no less grievous. The Belgrano, the loss of Sheffield and other ships, and the horror of Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram that very week had brought home to us the reality of war and the suffering it brings with it … That evening, the sadness came very close to the heart of our community … It had been a day of heavy action … At around midnight, tragedy struck. A number of people were sleeping in the house of John Fowler, Education Superintendant, in Ross Road West. The Argentines were shelling Mount Longdon, and the British were returning fire. There was also a naval bombardment in progress. A shell fell not far beyond this house and exploded and another exploded a little way in front of the house. Shrapnel from the second shell entered the house and injured a number of people, two of whom died immediately. The third, an elderly lady of 82, Mary Goodwin, was seriously wounded. She died a little time afterwards, on the morning of the ceasefire. These three were the only residents of Port Stanley to die because of the invasion.

It is a credit to the professionalism of the military that only three civilians died compared to the loss of 255 British service personnel and over a thousand injured.

The last verse of John McCrae’s famous poem On Flanders Field reminds us how with remembering comes a duty, an obligation, for each generation to defend the causes of peace and justice:

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Those words do not only apply to those who serve their country but also to each one of us. Because we can all remember and by remembering in the visible, gathered way from parade to Church today we are a sign; we are declaring that we will never take for granted the peace we enjoy in our generation. And I am very mindful that some of the young boys and girls here today may choose to join the Army, Navy or RAF responding to sense of duty, a vocation perhaps, to serve their country.

Of course the pathway of war and violent conflict is not the way of God. Christians rightly are often at the forefront of those calling for a laying down of arms. As the prophet Micah proclaimed of God’s way – he shall beat the swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation. But sadly the calls of so many people for non-violent reconciliation are not heard in many quarters. And so men and women do have to bear arms to hold faith with those who died in past wars.

We heard last week of just how great a threat to the peace and stability of our society terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism are becoming. The head of MI5 said this “MI5 is facing the most immediate and acute peacetime threat in its 98 year history. Al Qaeda is conducting a deliberate campaign against the UK … the threat could last a generation.”

We were reminded of the consequences of terror as the Madrid bombers were jailed in Spain last week. In a poem called Madrid madness Donald Macaskill wrote these words:

There has to be another way;
as love demonstrates against fear,
peace marches the road of pain,
as thousands cry for justice

Madrid
7.39 am
11.03.04
a litany of destruction
as life extinguished
by terror remote:
cries out for purpose,
shouts for an end
to all horror of this kind. .

We have to play our part in ending horror of this kind. The prime minister writing of the importance of remembrance and the work of the British Legion said: “As the nature of war has changed so far fewer of us have served in the Forces … it is now all the more important that we continue to value those who serve and have served; not only to remember them on occasions such as Remembrance Sunday, but to acknowledge in new ways what they have done and still do.” He went on to stress the importance of young people being aware of the role of the courage, comradeship, service and sacrifice that have safeguarded our freedoms down the ages.

It is those values that underpinned the courage of the servicemen and women who have given their lives for our country and whom we remember today. Our 21st century wars are a very different shape to the past conflicts of the two world wars that are the starting point for our remembering. But the same values are instilled in those fighting today in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the cause of safeguarding our freedom remains their inspiration and their gift to us.

© Robert Jenkins November 2007