As the child of a damaged soldier, I see Remembrance Day differently. My father did not die in combat. He died of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a brain disease brought on by reoccuring images of war. The sounds and mental pictures of the battlefield never went away for my dad so he tried to silence them with booze. His life ended in a rolled car on a country road in 1957 on a cold November night. Neighbors found him pinned under his car with a six pack of beer at his side. There was no funeral cortege for my father, only a small marker in a military graveyard. No medals or notes from the Queen. He was no hero in the eyes of his community, just a rounder who couldn't keep a job and left his pitiful wife to pay his creditors. Instead of a ceremony, there was an inquest. Instead of a military pension, there was welfare for his widow. Instead of a father, there was a picture on top of the black and white television set...
More than a million served!