It's 2014. I'm at home, watching tv with my parents. The Christmas tree is full of ornaments and lights, presents lie around it, waiting for us to unwrap them. Everything is fine, everything will stay fine and we'll celebrate Christmas this way for many, many years.

December 1914. Another time, another place. It's cold in the trenches, bombs are falling everywhere and the Christmas spirit won't come to Europe this year. The soldiers on both fronts thought they'd be home by now. They thought the Great War would be fun and brief. They couldn't have been more wrong.
Back home their families wait for them, knowing they won't see their brothers, fathers and sons home this Christmas. Or next Christmas. Maybe theyear after that. Maybe not until Christmas 1918. Probably they'll never see them again...

The First World War fascinates me. It's the war that changed the essence of war itself. The Netherlands were completely neutral during this war, but less than 100km to the South, the Belgians were having a rough time. The Western front was very close the the town of Ypres. At the end of the war, there was very little left of this place.
Since it's exactly 100 years ago that the First World War started, I wanted to go to Ypres, where the fallen soldiers of this war are remembered every single day. I wanted to witness this ritual, and when I finally did, I was overwhelmed by the raw reality of the scars that WW I left on the face of Western Europe.

From Envy's Make it Happen List
#22: Witness "The Last Post" in Ypres, Belgium
Status: Awesomeness Achieved

I went to Ypres in October with my parents. We arrived there on a beautiful Autumn day. It was strange to see how peaceful the place is now, considering the tragedies that took place there just a century ago.
We went to the Menenpoort. This gate doesn't look very special on the outside. The inside, however, is covered with over 50.000 names of fallen soldiers whose bodies were never found. It's here, within the walls of this gat, that "The Last Post" ceremony takes place every night.
I read some of the names written on the inside of the gate. The lists were endless. The soldiers came from all over the world. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Belgium of course...
I couldn't imagine how many people's bodies were never found.
There were Fishers there too. I'm probably not related to any of them, but suddenly the First World War came very, very close. 



That night my parents and I joined the gigantic mass that went to the Menepoort for the Ceremony. Even though we came early the gate was almost too crowded to get in. I sneaked in somehow, wriggled my way towards the middle of the mass. We stood there, packed together so tightly that I couldn't see a thing. Then the sound of a single trumpet pierced the skies and everyone became quiet.