I don’t remember when Remembrance Day (Veterans day in the US) first seeped into my consciousness. Probably around the time I started school, which makes it more than 60 years ago.

My grandfather, I knew, had been a soldier, as had some of the other men from the church my family attended. They were veterans of the First World War, a conflict that seems so faraway now but was still fresh back then.

Others probably were veterans of the Second World War, or perhaps the Korean conflict. I don’t remember the wars being talked about at all. I think those generations bottled up a lot of the memories. Or maybe it just wasn’t considered a suitable subject for children.

Certainly my grandfather never spoke to me about what he had seen in combat. My mother knew more perhaps, but I only remember her telling the one story of his service, which in a few words describes the hell he found himself in.

The last veteran of that first global conflict has long since died, and the numbers left who fought in the second is dwindling fast. The youngest of them is in their nineties now. Soon their stories too will be relegated to history.

Yet we still remember.  We remember those who fought for freedom more than a century ago and, sadly, we remember those who have given their lives in more recent conflicts. War, as we have seen most recently in Gaza, never goes out of fashion.

As we remember, let us also pray for peace. And for the day when there are no veterans to attend Remembrance Day ceremonies.

That may never happen, but we can still hope, dream and pray. Especially pray.