Canadian memorial, The Brooding Soldier, at St Julien, Belgium.
This column marks the battlefield where 18,0000 Canadians on the British left withstood the first German gas attacks, the 22nd-24th of April 1915. 2,000 fell and here lied buried.
On the day TFH and I visited, a coach-load of British secondary school kids were picnicking in the little park beside the cemetery. At first, it was jarring to see the boys, teenagers like most of the soldiers being commemorated here, laughing and flirting with their female schoolmates. But then I realized, this is how life should be, not the pointless sacrifice of young lives that took place here.
(Post edited later for clarity)