I passed a spare hour a few days ago floating on the sea - somewhere I'm to be found with increasing frequency of late - thinking of significant events in my life. I tried to recall something from every year, excluding the first few which I think I can be forgiven for not quite recalling with perfect clarity... As too many memories starting vying for attention I endeavoured to order them into different categories: academic achievements, friends, countries visited, dreams created or shattered or realised.
And at some point, I started thinking of world events from the past twenty-six years. Why is it that those which are so memorable are also those which are so terrible? I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that Princess Diana had been killed; I know every moment of the afternoon where I sat and watched, transfixed, as planes crashed into New York's World Trade Centre. The year of the tsunami, I passed a sombre Christmas in Buenos Aires; a few months previously in Argentina, I know exactly how I lay as I saw the news of the Russian school siege. I remember thinking how lucky my brother was, hidden away somewhere in the mountains of Kazakhstan, no contact with the outside world and one of the few who was fortunate enough not to know of the horrors unfolding.
This evening, I watched the final episodes of the 'Celebrity Apprentice'. In my defence, I'd like to say that the DVDs were bought for me by a friend in China who acquired them at barely existent prices for my occasional amusement as a source of mockery. Piers Morgan was trying - and succeeding impressively well - to earn money for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund , money going to wounded American servicemen and women to assist with their rehabilitation. I was reminded of the time when I sat up into the early hours of the morning to watch George Bush officially declare war on Iraq, and I was reminded of all the times I've made slick comments and ribald remarks about the politicians who allowed this war to take place. And I have to say, I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself this evening. I sat in Houston Airport a few years ago, watching wives saying goodbye to their husbands who they may never have the chance to see again, guys who might never see their children grow up, may never have the opportunity to be a father. I've never really had a father, not in the traditional sense of the word anyway, and it isn't something I could wish on any child.
I guess the concept of, 'Support Our Troops' finally hit home. If someone is out there being shot at from all angles in the name of Freedom - however tenuous that definition may be - then one of the last things they need is people voicing pious opinions about their presence in the occupied country.
On 11th November this year, I will be in Hong Kong. And at 11am on that day, regardless of what those about me are doing, I will pause in my tracks and think for two minutes of the millions of people who have given their lives in the last century. They make you do this in schools in England, standing upright with a paper poppy fastened loosely with a safety pin onto your uniform, no particular explanations offered as to why this requirement exists.
No, I don't agree with the principles the war in Iraq is being fought on - not now. I did to some extent when they first invaded, the concept of liberating the Iraqi people. But since then I've changed those ideas and disagree with the person I was six years ago. As long as somebody is out there, putting their life on the line because it is their job, risking themselves so that I can exist in a world with a slightly less skewed version of Freedom operating, I think I'll support them. And I suppose that, after all, teaching upper class brats isn't so very terrible a task.
'If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.' ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War.
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