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Pelochelys cantorii Duckbilled Platypus

It is almost 11am where I live. The 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. We can complain about a lot of things in our lives. We drive to work and someone cuts us off. Someone has 9 items in the 8 item express lane. The airlines never tell you the real reason for the delay. Engineering works make you 10 minutes late for a match. The sled dogs 550m from my house howled non-stop last night. A co-worker is annoying; someone at the pub spilled a drink on you. And so on. But pause and think, if you were a male, born in 1890, 1895,1900 even and left home, your family and friends, your children. And you found yourself in a trench, on the Somme, going over the top and watched as mortar shells ripped into the next man you. But pause and think, if less than 30 years later, after the war to end all wars, after a man went to Munich and declared peace for our time, another generation found itself on the beaches of Normandy, again seeing men getting ripped to shreds. Think how traumatised you'd feel if you were on a motorway and saw a terrible accident with dismemberment and then think how men felt seeing that every day, every hour. But pause and think of the battle names. Vimy Ridge, Battle of Britain, the Somme, Verdun, Operation Overlord, the evacuation of Dunkirk, Gallipoli, Amiens, Passchandaele, the Atlantic theatre, Hong Kong. Think of the Battle of Midway, the firestorms of Dresden, Guam, the atomic bombings of Japan. All carried out by men defending the way of life we believe in. Justified or not, these were men like you and me, men who grew up hoping for a good life, men who fell in love, men who never got the chance to fall in love, men who were taken from small towns, from hamlets, from big cities,who were asked to do terrible things to other human beings, to see terrible things, to commit incredible acts of bravery, to defend what they believed to be the just cause and way of living that was under grave threat. And think of the Germans and Japanese, the innocent civillians who lost their lives in firestorms, the aftertmath of the atomic bombs,think of British civilillians in the bombings of London and Coventry. Think of the suffering of POWs. The German soldiers, who came from small towns, villages and big cities who loved just as we loved, who felt pain just as we felt pain. Shrapnel, I am sure, felt just as horrible tearing out the bowels of a SS soldier as it did a private of a regiment from Lancashire. On July 1, 1916 on the first day of the Somme offensive, at Beaumont Hamel, the Newfoudland Regiment suffered an enormous loss uncomprenhensible today to us. There was 801 men in the Newfoundland Regiment. On July 2nd1916 at roll call, 68 unwounded men answered. I have never been to the Somme, but it is said that you are never far from a war cemetary or memorial. May God rest all their souls. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders Fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders Fields. - John McCrae