Proud to Remember

I watched the coverage of the remembrance service at the Cenotaph this morning and found it deeply moving. I felt a great sadness and empathy for all the families effected by the loss of their loved ones and friends, and being a mother of a young man of 23, the heart breaking stories of the young lives recently lost resonated the most.  

Yet what was also evident from that loss was an enormous pride and dignity surrounding their lives. A pride at being a member of the British army and what it stands for.

My father like his father before him was a member of the army. Grandad served during the Boer war and the First World War. My father an army man for over 17 years travelled all over the world in defence of his country and democracy, joining up two months after his 17th birthday.

This is my dad on the right of the picture aged 5 years.

And here he is again with me at my first wedding in 1984 when he was 73. 

Reading his service record (only quite recently), was quite a humbling process for me as he had been involved in so much, yet he never really spoke about it. 
Dunkirk and D-Day, the liberation of France and fighting deep within the heart of Nazi Germany. At one battle near Sourdevalle on 6th August 1944, lasting half an hour 160 men in his battalion of 550 were slaughtered.

I do feel tremendously grateful to all of our service men and women then and now, and immensely proud of their fortitude and decency.