Friday 8 May 2020

As someone who has never experienced the horrors of war, or even been a member of the Armed Forces, I feel most ill-equipped to comment on days such as today. This VE Day 75th Anniversary is a day of celebration, commemoration and reflection for the ending of wartime hostilities in Europe. I was born in 1954, a baby-boomer, even rationing had ended by the time I graced this earth with my presence. I have, therefore, no personal experience of war to call upon.

I have, though, the experience of those whom I have talked with and listened to over the years. Great-aunts who served as ARP Wardens, uncles who served in the RAF, my father who became a ‘Bevin-boy to name but a few. More significantly, in my mind, were those old soldiers whom I came across in the early years of my ministry as a visitor around the wards of the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. Their stories had a depth of feeling and poignancy that really struck home with me. I will never forget their accounts.

People often say that those who came home from the War didn’t talk about their experiences. I am not sure how true that was of all veterans. What I do know is that when you encountered those veterans in their final days, lying in their hospital beds, all too aware of their approaching death, then they want to talk. They tell you about the constant fear that they felt. Not a fear that paralysed but a fear that was a reminder of their mortality. The realisation that each day could be your last really focuses the mind. They recall the comradeship that existed between men who, in different circumstances would have been strangers with little in common. In war they became closer than family. They speak of having to become accustomed to death, to having to somehow become deaf to the cries of their comrades and accept loss and move on to the next task. They remember how victory was somehow not something to celebrate but was greeted with a numb silence because the price that was paid to achieve it was too great, too raw, too painful.

Of all the stories that I heard on those wards, what has stayed with me most over the years was the aching void that all of the survivors of war carried with them. Their experiences, and I speak here of those who were in active service, robbed them of part of their humanity. Some precious part of them was left behind on the battlefields of Europe and beyond. Yes, they were all immensely proud of having served, of having played their part. They readily acknowledged that they were just doing their duty, readily admitting that they would rather have been at home. They didn’t see themselves as heroes, just men who, though often filled with fear, did what had to be done. But at the end of their lives there was a deep sense of regret and sadness. Regret and sadness at the loss, the destruction, the pain and the anguish caused by War. Regret and sadness at the futures that were never lived, the hopes and dreams never achieved. Regret and sadness at the utter failure that War points towards. For in their eyes, War is an admission of human failure and an acquiescence to our baser instincts. Their words, not mine.

The encounter that moved me most, as I think back, was that of a former sergeant who recalled how on one occasion he and his platoon had been pinned down by enemy fire. There was a sudden explosion and he found that a young private had taken the full force of it. His wounds were terrible and the young lad was dying before his eyes. There was a lull in the fighting and the platoon was going to move out to safety. The young lad knew that he wouldn’t make it so he asked his sergeant to give him a quick end. The old sergeant told with tears in his eyes how he had held back from the others and had shot the soldier before he too made his escape. Why was he telling me this after 50 years? For him it was as if it had happened yesterday and he had lived with the memory and pain of that event everyday of his life since. He was seeking forgiveness and absolution. He couldn’t die, he told me, without telling someone his story. The pain and burden of it had hollowed him out inside, he told me, he just wanted to know some peace.

Perhaps there is indeed much to celebrate and commemorate today. A terrible and destructive episode in human history had come to an end. What I hope and pray, though, is that we might learn the lessons of history. Lessons that might teach us that War is never a lasting solution, that true peace can never be achieved through death and destruction, that, ultimately, the real war is fought within each of our hearts and minds. Only when that battle is won can there be any real hope of a lasting peace on earth.