While I believe that this day reminds us of the futility and waste, I don't think it has the power to reduce or ameliorate these things. I met my mother's cousin's son when we were both 16. I lived in Canada in relative comfort and he in the States in the kind of poverty Vimes describes about Cockbill Street. We were pretty similar in temperament and opinion. I met him again when we were 26. Poverty had forced him into the armed forces (I have no idea what peer-pressure might have been involved in the post-draft era). He was a very different person. He had always been perfectly capable of seeing when his efforts were being used for shit purposes, but poverty had made him complicit. Something has to give under that kind of pressure, and he reminded me of nothing so much as those WWII veterans I mentioned above. I don't know how to describe the change in non-cliche ways. Hard. Disillusioned. Now capable of ungood acts for a personal purpose. I think poverty and propaganda are stronger than days of rememberance. I think the fallen and veteran family members of us all deserve to be remembered, but I especially think this because I think their idealism and committment have been squandered.