It’s not often that I agree with conservative writer Peter Hitchens. But I really do love the story and sentiment that he expresses in this column:

“Long ago, a retired Serviceman said to me that the least anyone could do, when he saw a war memorial, was to pause and read some of the names on it. It was a tiny thing compared to what the dead had done, but it would in some way help to make their deaths worthwhile.

I have tried to follow this advice. I read the names, often seeing several members of one family listed on a small village cross and forcing myself to imagine what this must have meant.”

I agree, it’s a very important thing to do. I try to read all the historical markers I come across, both for the sake of those whom they commemorate and for my own.