My grandad knew the true horrors of war - today's politicians have forgotten the lessons of his generation

My grandad knew the true horrors of war - today's politicians have forgotten the lessons of his generation He survived the North African campaign, tended the dying and returned home without ever boasting about his bravery. Now the generation that witnessed the horrors of war is almost gone, writes GB News's Editorial Director Sign up to the Opinion Newsletter I agree to receive updates and information about my account, the GB News Community, and related products and services from GB News.

Email address Sign up By signing up you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy and Community Rules. Thank you for signing up! See the latest from GB News here . Choose GB News on Google - add us as a preferred source Choose GB News Support GB News Champion free speech and independent journalism while unlocking exclusive benefits. Support us Most of us really don’t know how lucky we are. We don't know what it takes to survive a world war.

Not just live through one, but take part because your country needs you, and somehow survive. But there used to be thousands of people living among us who did. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say When I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, they were everywhere. Some of the oldest inhabitants of villages and towns up and down Britain had fought and lived through the First World War. That conflict was so brutal and ruinous of individuals, families, towns, and entire countries that it was called the ‘war to end all wars.’

Unfortunately, humans being humans, the ‘war to end all wars’ was followed just 21 years later by another worldwide conflict. Equally brutal, equally ruinous. Hundreds of Britons died in blitz | GB News Again, those who gave up everything to fight for their country, came back from battles in foreign lands to quietly take up normal life once again. Veterans of both wars passed you unannounced in the street every day. They would be there, sat quietly with their families in the corner of pubs, next to you in the queue at the Post Office, beside you on the terrace at a football match.

In general, they didn’t shout about what they’d seen and heard on the battlefield. They were humble. They were quiet. But they remembered. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS Plymouth was heavily bombed in World War Two | GETTY Trump's tariff rate is the highest since the Second World War | GB News/Reuters Not performatively - like some of our posturing, modern political class - instead, they remembered everything - the sickening sights, the smells, the sounds.

They remembered just how bad it had been, and they were a living example of why we should never do it again. I was lucky to have one such hero in my life, my grandad Michael Corcoran. In 1939, aged 24, he began his journey into war, a journey that turned him from a recently married warehouse foreman in Leeds to a frontline combatant. His frontline was a world away from the streets of 1930s Leeds where he lived; it was Africa. He tended the wounded and dying as one of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the fight with German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s ruthless Afrika Corps.

His army record states that this man, my 5ft 5 (and a half) inch tall grandad, was mentioned in dispatches in 1943 for a gallant or brave act in combat that we as a family are still trying to research. Other families like mine have similar heroes to cherish. Grandad Corcoran never mentioned it to us when he was alive. Turning up for family occasions throughout the year dressed in his cardigan and slacks, and driving his tinny Fiat 127 car at Christmas, the subject of war never came up.

In fact, the only act of bravery I witnessed when with him was from me and my brother as we clung on for dear life as he took corners at high-speed driving through Sunderland on unfamiliar roads one day. He’d driven a field ambulance under threat of German attack in the desert, so the streets near Roker Park were no bother to him…even though he was a Leeds United fan. People, heroes, like him, were in every family – at all levels of society – all the way up to government.

It helped that the people that had dropped everything to serve their country and put their lives on the line were everywhere. They were certain that this country should do all it could to avoid another all-encompassing war. Now here we are in November 2026 and that generation, the one that saved us from a lifetime of oppression, are virtually all gone and we are lost without them. They were the living, breathing conscience of our society – without them we are exposed and that is a danger.

The point of remembering was so we don’t repeat mistakes of the past. If there’s no one to truly remember - having witnessed previous mistakes first-hand – then there’s danger those mistakes will be repeated. In their place, we have a political establishment that thinks preparing for war is stockpiling fizzy wine and baked beans. A generation of politicians treating the prospect of worldwide chaos and conflict as play school performance art.

And that’s what I see, performance rather than remembrance. My grandad didn't survive North Africa so that future leaders could casually count down a 1,000-day clock to a third world war on the 6pm news. By reducing the terrifying reality of what war is to a simple checklist, today's politicians have forgotten the true weight of what it takes to keep the peace. Millions of people perished in those brutal world wars. Since then, millions more soldiers have died as nations have gone head-to head, never quite reaching total war.

A Remembrance Sunday service in Dover | GB NEWS Today we are told we are closer than ever, the conscription mentioned once again. On Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day, the nation will stand together again. At the Cenotaph and town squares across the land wreathes will be laid; prayers will be said. As the bugler plays, I will stand shoulder to shoulder with Grandad Corcoran’s memory . If our leaders have forgotten the cost of war, it is up to us to carry the conscience of our family heroes.

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