Throughout Aotearoa / New Zealand long lists of names are inscribed on memorials to soldiers who fought and died in the War of 1914.
l knew some of survivors of that war when they were middle aged men. Now as memories of them fade all that is left are the statues of young soldiers on crumbling monuments in the landscapes of their youth.
When I was a child I loved looking through my mother's album of postcards from her fiance who had served in France in that war. There were posed photographs from the front of young men, some hardly more than boys, who had rallied to the call of mother England and marched off to be slaughtered for king and country in what was hailed by the politicians of the day as the war to end all wars.
Now we can look back on a century of constant conflict with horrendous consequences for entire innocent populations.

The horror continues