This important day- to remember the soldiers who died in the World Wars, but also to all soldiers of more recent ones, is marked by moving dawn services all over New Zealand. And in Gallipoli where thousands died, there has been a moving dawn ceremony with a crescent moon conducted in darkness. Why must there be wars? Why send young men to die for old men's vanities and misplaced ideals?
As I finished my second book, Destinies Divided: in the Chinese trilogy, the last third of which is set in World War 1, I am haunted by the unnecessary deaths, the unwinnable wars. Yet it goes on.... the rape of nations, the loss of a generation. Lest we forget.