Of course they are, this day is not a celebration of victory, it's a sombre reflection on the costs of war and an opportunity to honour and thank veterans of pa

Of course they are, this day is not a celebration of victory, it's a sombre reflection on the costs of war and an opportunity to honour and thank veterans of past wars for their service on behalf of our respective countries. It is for example not uncommon for Allied and German veterans of WWII, once enemies, to unite for Remembrance Day services throughout the British Commonwealth. Whether there are public tributes to soldiers in modern Germany is obviously a different issue, given that country's understandable ambivalence to its soldiers who fought in WWII, but that does not take away from the fact that, in the West, the events marking today are neither triumphant nor overly militaristic. In fact, today's events were started as a commemoration of the end of WWI, a war which had shaken the world to its core with its till-then unprecedented horror, brutality and human toll.