A Great Company and a Mighty Army?

Mike Shaw - Why? - "A Great Company and a Mighty Army"

Den britiske fotograf +Mike Shaw tog engang dette fremragende billede af sin søn ved et krigsmindesmærke i Liverpool. Via +Anne Mette Agerholm fandt jeg det sammen med historien om sønnens insisterende Why?:

This was taken in Liverpool on the 14th of December 2008 when I took my son to the Walker art gallery, very much an older image but one that I hold dear. On the way back to the station he saw all the poppy wreaths set out at the war memorial, he went across to look at what they were.

As he looked around he asked what both the poppies and the memorial meant so I tried to explain about war and why men set out to kill each other under orders, at each response he simply asked "why" to which I tried to give a valid reason.

It did not take long before I simply ran out of valid reasons for war yet he still had a valid "why".

It simply did not make sense to a eight year old child as to why we need to kill another human being. More so for my son who we had not long found out after exhaustive tests was suffering from Aspergers syndrome so the questions meant something deeper to him.

When I could not answer his questions any more I said it was time to go and got up and walked away. It was only when I was a few feet away I realised he was not with me, I turned to see him kneeling, I took the photograph and then stood and watched, he was slowly reading each of the inscriptions on the wreaths and did so for another 30 minutes or so.

I have never felt so ashamed or so proud to be a father.

Sådan!

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