Remembrance Day Speech, 2006 (excerpt)

Unfortunately, the Christmas truce of 1914 did not mark the end of the war. It continued for three more devastating years. The battles continued, the deaths continued.
This was a tragic war of attrition. It was uselessly long; nothing was gained, and the losses were devastating. It went on for years because the participating countries refused to admit their failure, and retreat.
When the war did end, on November the eleventh of 1918, it was not truly over. The horrors lived on in the minds, memories and nightmares of the young men who lost their friends, their innocence and their world as they knew it, in the trenches of the Western Front.
The war was pointless, but the lives that were lost were not. The men who sacrificed their lives believed in what they were fighting for. Today, we honour their lives, courage, selflessness and sacrifice.
These men, these sons, fathers, lovers; they made tragic sacrifices for that in which they had faith. Country, comrades and friends, family. We must ask ourselves what we would be willing to experience, to sacrifice for what we believe in.
The lives which we remember today were full of optimism and hope. Faith. Belief. Trust. Courage. Honour.
War left these men changed. It left them hollow, mere reflections of their former selves. The horrors of what they experienced became a part of their existence. It was a horror that they endured not only during their time at the front, but for the remainder of their lives. Today, you are encouraged to reflect upon how horribly tragic war is, and acknowledge that war lives on long after the sound of the last shot has faded. Today we ask ourselves what the experience of war would mean to us, and we honour the lives that war has touched, and continues to touch to this very day.
T. S. Eliot, a famous modernist writer wrote a poem titled “The Hollow Men,” and in this poem, he begs that those who fought be remembered as the hollow men rather than wanton fools or worthless pawns.
During the moment of silence which will follow a reading of this poem, we ask you to remember, reflect, and honour the lives touched by war, and the sacrifices that so many have made.

The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper