In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place

World War I gets me, pretty deep down. So bloody and it meant nothing. Once I had an argument with a friend about Anzac Day. She said she found the glorification of war disgusting. But days like these aren't about the glorification of war. They're about remembering, and regretting. Aren't they? At the dawn service they don't say 'kick ass! we killed some people!' They say

... at the going down of the sun
and in the morning
we will remember them

New Zealand's Unknown Warrior has been brought home from the Somme and is being interred at the National War Memorial today. One of 18, 166 dead in a country with a population at the time of just over 1 million. One dead soldier for every 55 people. Then we lost 8000 to the influenza epidemic. A whole generation decimated.

Sigh. I'm not sure what happened to my determination to be cheerful. Um, does it help to know that as well as being the highest per capita casualties of World War I, we also had the highest per capita rate of venereal disease? At least they had some fun before going over the top...