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Good Morning.Ìý The nation commemorated on Saturday the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.Ìý It was in May 1945 that war ended in Europe, but in the Far East it continued until August.Ìý The war in the East was known as the ‘forgotten war’, those who fought in it as the ‘forgotten army’, and my thought today has to do with how we understand what happens on the other side of the world.Ìý

From the Second World War, we are familiar with Dunkirk and Arnhem, even with El Alamein and Monte Cassino, but what about Kohima: an immense battle lasting almost three months in 1944, the turning-point in the war in the East, the greatest of our battles, the equivalent of Thermopylae or Stalingrad in its strategic effect.Ìý Quite simply, because it happened beyond the horizon it has remained remote from the national consciousness.Ìý Did something similar happen with our expeditionary wars of this century, the campaigns in Iraq and in Afghanistan?Ìý We saw the dead as they came home via Brize Norton and Wootton Bassett, and we honoured them, but otherwise it may have been ‘out of sight and out of mind’.Ìý

Something similar is, perhaps, true in our perception of the dreadful realities of Syria and Iraq today.Ìý We live in our own context, and we live with the daily challenges that press upon each of us, but if the internet and media and mass travel allow us to be global citizens, then they bring also a global responsibility.Ìý And so I pray:Ìý Lord God, let me not forget my neighbour, especially the neighbour whom I do not see, and let me grateful for all who labour unseen on my behalf.Ìý Amen.Ìý

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