A FORGOTTEN MONUMENT

From TODAY, Voices

Friday November 28, 2008

 

By Dr James Dobson

 

Last summer, I was in a picturesque little village called Garmish in southern Germany, and I happened to notice a small monument erected in memory of the young men who died in World War I.

 

There on a bronze plaque were the names of boys who actually lived in that beautiful village and who suffered, bled, and died for their country. About 20 men were listed, along with their ranks and dates of death. I stood reading those names and wondering what stories they concealed and what their losses meant to the loved ones waiting in that little town.

 

Then I walked around to the other side of the monument and saw another bronze plaque listing the dead from World War II, and something jumped out at me. Many of the last names were the same. The young men who had lost their lives in that first war had left behind boys who grew up and died in the next conflagration. It also meant there were women in Garmish who lost their husbands in World War I, only to have their sons die two decades later on other battlefields.

 

This little journey into history emphasised for me once more that it is families that suffer most from the ravages of war.