pumpkinstrokemarrow

This relates slightly to another problem I came across this morning while finishing off the book mentioned yesterday by Margaret MacMillan. Suppose country A decides that country B is doing bad things and sends a lot of conscripts to bash country B out of their bad things. Suppose further that a lot of the conscripts get killed in the resultant messy war and that subsequently most people in country A decide that it would have been better to leave country B alone. The cure was worse than the problem. What do we do about memorialising our dead? Some take the view that the survivors and the families of the dead are the only ones qualified to have a view. That showing respect to our dead takes precedence over all other considerations and that this excludes saying out loud that the whole thing was a terrible mistake, or worse. Others take the view that those on the ground, possibly badly paid and badly educated conscripts, are not at all likely to make a considered judgement. In fact, being on the ground, might almost disqualify one from making a judgement at all. I am quite clear that one can come to a considered judgement without being on the ground. But I am not so clear about what one should do with that judgement.

In the olden days, before there was much conscription (at least in the UK), there was the principle, in the words of the poet, that 'Theirs not to reason why|Theirs but to do and die'. Those in the army existed and were paid to do the bidding of those in charge. They did not need to concern themselves with matters of higher policy. But things have moved on, so even when you are not conscripting people, those in charge do need to have a proper story on why they are asking people to risk their lives. And it is not unreasonable that those who have risked their lives are going to get cross if the tide changes and everybody else decides that the whole thing was wrong and that perhaps those involved were war criminals. We do have to show respect to those who die in the service of our country, even if, after the event, we find that service bad. This is often going to involve architectural stonework, perhaps on a large scale in a public place - although keying this reminds me that a lot of returning servicemen after the first world war were not at all keen on the architectural stonework that those who had stayed at home wanted to erect in honour of those that did not come home. A lot of those who did come home wanted something more useful done with the money collected on the wave of sentiment. Like building schools or village halls. All in all, a tricky path to tread.

I close with Caspar, a name I thought I did not know how to spell, so I asked Mr G. It turns out that you have two options as to what the name means. Option one, it is the current awareness service for policy, practise and research. This appears to be something published by the NSPCC. Option two, it is the computer assisted self and peer assessment rating, something published by the HEFCE. Which, just in case you did not know, is the higher education funding council for England. So there. Take your pick. Caspar's of the world unite!