Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
  In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
            And though you died back in 1916
        To that loyal heart are you always 19?
    Or are you a stranger without even a name
    Forever enshrined behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
  And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

That stanza is from a song, known by a couple of titles, including Willie McBride. According to information I've been able to Google, it was written by a guy named Eric Bogle, and it looks like it will be the inspiration for a feature film that's in the works (I haven't been able to find much information on that).

I have a tape of the Rovers performing that tune. It deals with a man travelling through the French countryside, coming to war cemetery and stopping at the grave of one Private William McBride

and his thoughts as he gazes at the grave marker. That particular passage above is one I have always found particularly moving because it focuses on a part of war that is sometimes downplayed, but which maybe should be recalled at times like Remembrance Day.

There is plenty of information about the losses and suffering endured by people (mostly men) in the heat of the struggles, and that is as it should be. These were the guys, after all, who put their lives on the line, and who lost those lives in a lot of cases. And there were the other cases in which men had to endure with the scars and injuries they were left with, including physical, mental and emotional. The war movies and stories we've all been exposed to over the years delve into those issues a lot, for good reason. And I think most of us have encountered veterans from time to time who still bear some scars.

But perhaps it would be well, for a while, to think about those left behind.

I'm thinking of parents who were left to endure the loss of their sons, something no parent should ever have to deal with. It's part of the natural life cycle that people have to deal with the death of their parents, but not the other way around. And although I don't have children myself, I think I can understand what a loss like that is like, and appreciate that the pain of it never really goes away. It can be endured, but not erased. If this were a perfect world, it wouldn't happen, although if it were a perfect world, there would be no wars and little need for a Remembrance Day.

I'm thinking of the women who lost either their husbands or boyfriends. For the most part, these would have been young men who died, meaning whatever relationships they were part of should have lasted a lot longer. In a lot of cases, these women would have been able to move on with their lives, finding relationships elsewhere. But there would have been many who either would not or could not. And even if they were able to move on, the memories would still have been there, along with some sad thoughts for what might have been. We frequently hear or read stories about such women, and I always find them both poignant and inspiring.

I'm thinking of families and friends who were left behind. I guess I was always aware of them, but it was driven home to me some years ago when I visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. If you ever get the chance, you should see this monument. It was one of the most moving experiences I've ever

had. The memorial is in the form of a series of panels forming a wall, bearing the names of all the casualties of that conflict, arranged in chronological order. As was explained to me at the time, each name represents a single event in a long and tragic string of occurrences. What I saw were people of varying ages concentrating on particular spots on this long wall. In some cases, they were just staring, but others were laying flowers and other remembrances, or were taking rubbings of the names with paper and pencil. I was just a tourist, watching people with much deeper involvement than I coping with a loss in their own way.

All of these people have been victims of war. Maybe not to the extent of those who were in action, but loss is loss. It is something that has to be endured, and something that should not be forgotten, be it Remembrance Day or any other day.
      And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
        Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
      You really believed that this war would end war?
    But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
        The killing and dying - it was all done in vain.
          For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
        And again, and again, and again, and again.