[Doug]

Simple isn’t it Gayle, The futility of war, no one wins and all too often we fail to learn the lessons that fighting a war brings. The worst crime we commit is that we fail to educate our son’s the absurdity of war. Yes I agree that we need to insure that our children visit this place, but we need to start in our schools so that they can grasp the full implication of they will witness why they get there.

The real shame is that between the Great War and World War Two only 25 years elapsed, a generation lost there lives and a single generation later they committed our son’s once more. Britain over the last 60 years will have fought no less than 40 smaller wars, Emergencies, Policing Operations, Limited Actions, Counter Terrorism operations call them what you will. We haven’t really learnt anything other than we kill less people today because of advance in technology. Unfortunate the same advances in technology allow others to bring war to our streets. 2000 years and we’re back were we started.

I do agree totally with your sentiments and I will be taking my son this summer holiday, but I don’t believe that marching school kids in one door and out the other will change anything. We need to teach them proper values like respect, and discipline, they to be strong, competitive and above all compassionate. Today’s generation take virtual lives hundreds of times a day. We desensitise then through film, DVDs, computer games, play stations and the like. Don’t expect too much. We have to remove falseness we have taught them, only them can we teach them the reality.