I used to visit Brantford’s War Memorial often to honour those who went and fought and fell. It’s across from the Armouries where I started my paper route for the Brantford Expositor when I was a kid. Later, when I grew up, I used to go there and read the names, and wonder why they chose to go, why they went with little or no complaint.

Lest we forget. This phrase appears usually a week before Remembrance Day, perhaps earlier, when veterans of the two great wars and any other conflict worthy to be included among these others, are contacted, rounded up, and asked for their stories of what war was like.

My friend’s opinion didn’t differ much from mine, both of which took the form of a question. What is the point of remembering if that’s all that’s done, other than ceremonies large and not so large around monuments to the dead, and presentations at every school in the so-called free Western world?

Yes, we keep remembering and then wring our hands when other conflicts arise and more innocent people die, governments send troops, usually at the request of larger, more powerful nations, often those who initiated the fighting in the first place.

All of which, eventually, their causes, these conflicts, can be traced to the question of who will control the resources in that area? Often it’s not the country where they reside, but those whose industries need them.

In the end, war is a financial phenomenon prompted by the well-to-do and carried out by their governments, or for them, lest we forget this too.

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