DATE: Sunday, November 23, 1997             TAG: 9711210099

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E12  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   77 lines

WHEN THE BRITISH HONOR VETERANS, THERE'S A DIFFERENCE

I JUST RETURNED from a week in London, which happened to coincide with England's Remembrance Day - what we call Veterans Day. I couldn't help noticing the difference in the way the two countries mark the occasion.

My wife, Karen, and I got up on Sunday, Nov. 9, and took the Underground to Westminster. Thousands of English men and women, of all ages and many races, were queuing up at metal detectors under gray skies for the annual ceremony in which the queen lays a wreath at the monument called the Cenotaph.

Because of the possibility of terrorism by the Irish Republican Army, there was heavy security, including military observers and probably sharpshooters on the roofs nearby. But none of this, nor the cold, steady rain that soon began to fall, seemed to bother those who had come out.

Military units and bands massed around the monument in a display of khaki, Scottish tartans and tall bearskin hats. At 11 a.m., a single gun fired, and the city began two minutes of silence, which was so complete as to be truly profound in a city as busy as London.

I think it was then that Queen Elizabeth II laid the wreath, but I couldn't tell you for sure: The crowds, and especially the forest of umbrellas, made it impossible to see anything around the monument.

Then the most surprising part of the ceremony began. For a solid hour, more than 10,000 English veterans and the widows of veterans marched past the monument.

As far as I could tell, every conflict from World War I and World War II to the Falklands and the Gulf War was represented - and many others in spirit, of course. As they marched, military bands played tunes continuously, everything from ``God Save the Queen'' to ``It's a Long Way to Tipperary'' and ``Rule Britannia.''

Finally, the veterans passed, the military units marched out again, and the crowd dispersed, many probably heading for a much-needed cup of hot tea.

But that was not the end of the observances. BBC that night broadcast a full half-hour program on the ceremony. Another moment of silence was observed at 11 a.m. Tuesday the 11th, the actual moment of the armistice that ended World War I. All week long, people wore red poppies in their lapels.

Later, over dinner, Karen and I talked about the difference from the American observance of Veterans Day or Memorial Day. Here, the national media usually note in passing that the president visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There may be some features about veterans' issues, and that's about it. Many people go about their business hardly aware of the day's significance.

Rather than ask why we do less to mark the day, it may be worthwhile to ask why the English do more. Theirs is a nation long steeped in war, fought literally at their doorstep. Europe - as close to England, at one point, as Suffolk is to Norfolk - has exploded into full-scale war twice in this century.

German bombs, a great many of them, fell on London and other cities. English fishing boats ventured out in 1940 to help rescue the trapped British army at Dunkirk. Some of England's greatest national heroes are those perceived as having preserved the country from invasion - Adm. Horatio Nelson, in the case of Napoleon, and Winston Churchill, against Hitler.

By contrast, we are a lucky nation. The closest we've come in this century to a direct attack on the mainland United States was a desperate effort by the Japanese to send balloon bombs across the Pacific.

When American soldiers have gone off to fight, they've gone thousands of miles. They fought, usually, for ideals, and selfless ones at that - to keep other nations free, to end the reign of tyrants, to preserve democracy and hold back totalitar-ianism.

(I leave aside the debates about whether soldiers are really fighting for oil, or trade, or similarly commercial motives. I don't believe that's ever entirely true. Regardless, it's not why people remember veterans' sacrifices.)

But fighting for democracy, however pure and gratifying, is not quite like defending the homeland; it doesn't get the blood pumping or the tears flowing quite as readily. If that means that as a nation we don't pause as long as others to remember our fallen soldiers, that's a shame.

Still, it's nice for war to stay so far away. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

TONY WHARTON

England's Remembrance Day includes marching and music by military

units.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu