Words of War

Another Anzac Day has passed by and thousands of families have remembered departed relatives, victims of Man's inhumanity to his own kind. They deserve to be mourned, but they did not deserve to be brutally killed. Behind the military smokescreen of "glory" words such as valour, heroism, sacrifice, honour, pride and discipline, little is ever said of political opportunism, moral blackmail, soul-destroying physical and emotional bombardment, business venality and the sorrows of families deprived of loved ones because of incompetence, ignorance and self-inflated egos of supposed leaders.

This year, because I am once more working on Okey genealogy, I try to think of how Mrs W's ancestors felt with their tragic series of losses. Grandfather John Okey was a grocer before WW1, surely a most unmilitary occupation. He was sent off to fight in North Africa and later to the mud and madness of France, leaving behind a wife and young family to struggle financially, socially and emotionally. The "Great War" ended on 11th November 1918. John was killed in action on 10th September 1918 at the Somme, only two months before the official armistice. He was part of an unnecessary ongoing conflict, when leaders on both sides were aware that Germany's defeat had been obtained.

Only one day earlier, 9th September 1918, John's cousin, Whitfield Okey, had died of wounds incurred in the same area of conflict in France. To complete the tragedy of "threes", John's young brother, Norris Okey, though unfit for service overseas, joined the Territorial Army which allowed service in the UK only. During his 1 year 3 months service, Norris was hospitalised for heart and other illnesses. He was discharged and began another personal battle with beaucracy to obtain a pension. As he seemed about to have some success, he died on 17th January 1919, 2 months after the war's end (4 months after the death of his brother). The Okeys had lost 3 close family in 4 months at the end of the lengthy, brutal, often mismanaged fight between "civilized" nations. The Okey family must have been distraught and confused and despairing, and this situation would have been mirrored in the homes of thousands of grieving families.

It is very difficult to create a balance sheet that shows how all the misery, fear, pain and frustration for combatants and their families was necessary for national pride, financial opportunism, territorial ambitions accompanied by irrational decision-making.

The slogan appropriately says "Lest We Forget", but sometimes I think that perhaps we just never knew !