Veteran's Day

When we were there, London was gearing up to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I. This is a scene from last Saturday that we found on the lawn of Westminster Abbey.

This seemed to be a much bigger deal over there than I've witnessed here. There was a big poppy appeal and a good percentage of the population had a poppy pinned to their jacket.

There were over 40 million casualties (20 million dead and 21 million injured) during the war -- a number that I find extremely hard to comprehend.

I've read a few books on the subject and cannot imagine going through the horrors that have been described. The images of trench warfare are impossible to get out of my mind.

Amazingly, there are still some veterans of that war that are alive.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post, except to thank those men and women who have served, and to express optimism that we can reach a point as a civilized society where such things could never happen again.