A glorious autumnal day, the sun flecking the doomed foliage and the temperature neither too warm nor too cold. Venue - the National Memorial Arboretum.
The whole place is splendid and it goes without saying that it is moving. A banal observation I know but it does make you think. And the memorial that particularly got me thinking seems to have affected many others in the same way. By the weird un-science of surfing I note that googling 'Shot at Dawn Memorial' provokes a tally of 352,000,000 hits. I wouldn't normally recommend that you jump into the rabbit hole of the internet but on this occasion it is worthwhile. What you will find (and no I haven't read all three hundred and fifty-two million entries - does it look more when in figures or words?) is a surfeit of excusable lax thinking - twenty-first century sensibilities being applied to an early twentieth century tragedy. We all do it but the process can leave you a little queasy. Search hard enough and you will find more nuanced reactions to the tragedy - there's that word again, but tragedy is right.
The arresting memorial commemorates three hundred and nine Empire soldiers executed for cowardice or mutiny in the Great War. All were pardoned by government fiat in 2007. This monument unequivocally does belong in the National Arboretum but it is an indicator of our sensitive modernism that it should provoke the most thought. And on balance - that is a good thing.
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