countdown to peace

It's 70 years today since this country followed blithely in the footsteps of mother England, and declared war on Germany. This is a mark.

3 days earlier, war in Europe had resumed in earnest, when Germany launched an unprovoked attack on neighbouring Poland, after having already annexed Czechoslovakia the previous year. The war would grow to involve dozens of nations around the globe, on many fronts, and drag on for six long years, causing untold death, misery, destruction and loss.

Those of us, now the majority, born in the post-war era, can never imagine the hardship that people went through in that time. It's hard to even imagine the duration of the stress and suffering.

If that war had begun today, in 2009, we would be caught up in it from now until September of 2015!

The next 6 years will produce a succession of 70th anniversaries or wartime events, many sad, some uplifting and memorable.

During that time, I'll keep note of what happens in my life, and imagine how much of that I might have lost if I had been born 70 years earlier, and remember to be grateful that I haven't had to live through a nightmare like World War II.