Are we forgetting how to remember?
Beyond Today
BBC
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2018
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is 100 years since the end of World War One. As the generations that fought in the two World Wars fade away, it gets harder to remember the impact of those conflicts. And while most tend to agree that those wars had to be fought, the case for more recent wars, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has been less clear cut. With some young people choosing not to wear a red poppy, are we forgetting the how to remember those who die in service to their country? We hear from a former soldier, who served in Afghanistan, about what the act of remembrance means to him.
This podcast contains discussion of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You can find support for dealing with PTSD by following this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3CTnhCQD6X0xC6Kw5LVKV3M/ptsd-and-more-support-information-and-support
Producers: Seren Jones, Georgia Coan and Harriet Noble.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Matthew Price. This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:21.0 | Every weekday we ask one big question about one big story. |
| 0:25.0 | Today are we forgetting how to remember? During the two in its silence my mind it flashes I literally so a lot of people will just remember the people that they know that they've lost. the And personally what happens for me and it's happened every year. My mind it's |
| 1:10.0 | almost like a timeline and it flashes from my head I literally think about the blokes in the trenches in the First |
| 1:15.3 | World War and then I flash through to all the conflicts over the past century that I can think |
| 1:21.0 | of and I think about the harrowing situations they've been in. |
| 1:25.0 | But then I look back at previous conflict and I think the blokes before me I've got so much respect for especially older veterans |
| 1:32.0 | because some of the environments they've had to |
| 1:34.3 | operate in I had millions of pounds of getting equipment to help me do my job |
| 1:38.7 | these blokes would literally in the normal clothes no body armor just with a rifle and some |
| 1:44.9 | ammunition and some basic rations and they would go to war for four years with |
| 1:48.8 | barely any leave periods they get rest periods where they come off the front and |
| 1:51.8 | then they have to go back like |
| 1:53.8 | anything that I've ever experienced is incredibly is compounded and intensified by what |
| 1:59.6 | they went through. |
| 2:03.0 | When they play the last post, the hair stand up on the back of the neck. |
| 2:09.0 | When they play the last post, |
| 2:11.0 | the hair stand up on the back of my neck and I get a bit emotional |
| 2:16.7 | and you just and everything just it all it's like a it's a whole tornado of emotions and |
| 2:22.0 | feelings and then it ends. |
| 2:27.0 | You go for a drink to your mates. |
| 2:38.0 | Every time I hear it, the last post gets to me. It makes me think about the conflicts that I've covered as a journalist, |
... |
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