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SATURDAY December 6, 2003 - Subscribe - Contact Us Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels November 22, 2003 How far have we come since the Great War? Colin Swales Ashland Remember your front page photograph last March showing the soldier wearing his gas mask while playing cards before we went to war over WMD's? Here in peaceful Ashland, nestled in the luxuriant undergrowth, alongside the footpath that meanders next to Ashland Creek just below the upper duck pond in Lithia Park, is a massive granite boulder that bears a small bronze plaque in remembrance of the 15 men from Ashland and vicinity who "gave their lives in the Great War for World-Wide Liberty 1917-1919." This has a certain poignancy for me as my own father, at age 19, was severely injured on the infamous killing-cliffs above ANZAC cove at Gallipoli, Turkey, in 1915. Later, lying in a gangrenous ward in Alexandria, Egypt, with one leg now 2 inches shorter than the other, he wrote to my grandmother, "It was just my misfortune to be knocked out so early in the game." Such was (and still is) the bravado of youth! He was one of only half of his platoon to survive that "great" war. A friend's grandfather lies buried at Kut-al-Amara in Mesopotamia. This town is more recently famous as well being the site of some of the constant bombing by US and UK aircraft in Iraq's southern "no-fly" zone during the last decade. But it is also famous as the place, where in 1916, the "most abject capitulation in Britain's military history" occurred, when 25,000 "coalition" forces perished trying to prevent these same oilfields getting into the hands of the then enemy-of-the-day (Germany/Turkey). But back to that remembrance plaque by the creek. ... Inscribed at the very bottom are the words "Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori" (it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country). Now, as a new generation of our teenage sons and daughters sacrifice their lives on the same ground haunted by their forebears of 88 years ago. It might be well to ponder what, if anything, we have learnt in the intervening time. And perhaps remember the words of poet Wilfred Owen who was killed in the trenches of Europe's Western Front just seven days before the Armistice in 1918. Lets hope our brave servicemen and women soon return safely home. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Road Cams