For Queen and Country

It's called Veterans Day here. It's Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom and many parts of the Commonwealth.

Harry Patch died in July at age 111. He was Britain's last World War One Veteran. So 2009 is the first year he will not be marching in the parade. We won't have that continuity. Within many of our lifetimes, the same will be true of World War Two vets.

What would Harry think of Gordon Brown's latest dustup?

For those who haven't been following, a grieving mum of a soldier killed in Afghanistan and he have been at loggerheads.

It seems that Brown writes handwritten condolence notes to the families of the fallen. When the mother of Jamie Janes, Jacqui Janes, received hers, she blanched at the 25 spelling errors -- including both her name and her son's. Brown called to apologize, a call Janes recorded and later released in which she suggested to the PM that her sons death could have been prevented if the forces were better supplied and supported.

Now, so many years into that conflict, we wonder what can be done to find "peace in our time." Many people didn't know that the visually impaired politician even wrote these notes (he lost much of his sight in a rugby accident) -- and the spelling errors prove that they are personal.

Meanwhile, mothers continue to grieve.





Photo by Jim Ross