...heroes, I was not one.

I have misgivings about Remembrance Day although I understand the desire to pay homage to the soldiers who died in the two world wars. (So many other lives were lost or damaged too.) And were they really all 'heroes'? It's all too easy to lavish on such sentiments and elevate those who died in battle to an exalted status.

My half-brother, The Old Man (who some will remember from images like this), was not a casualty - had he been I would never have known him. He enjoyed another 70 years of life after WW2 ended and he was demobbed unharmed. As a member of the 8th Rifle Brigade  supporting a tank regiment, he survived one of the bloodiest battles of the war, Hill 112, a small eminence in the Normandy countryside a few miles southwest of Caen. A key defensive position, it swung between German and British control with infantry and armoured divisions fighting every inch of the ground with enormous loss of life on both sides.

The Old Man was lucky to survive as so many did not. But I have to wonder:  had he died, would he have wanted to be remembered as a hero? I think not. On a newspaper article written about the battle some 20 years or so later he wrote  
I was there. It was hell. There were few heroes and I was not one.


Rather than have hero-dom thrust upon him I believe he would have preferred to be remembered as a modest, sensitive young man who loved birds, butterflies and plants, art, music and literature, the Eildon Hills and the Dorset coast.

He never spoke of his wartime experiences, never claimed any medals, never associated with fellow service men, never wore a poppy or attended any remembrance ceremonies. It pains me to think that there must have been many like him who are remembered by the fact that they died 'as heroes'.  

In the group photo The Old Man in the middle, second row up. The map, with the battleground circled, was among his few wartime memorabilia.