"Lower than a snake's navel"

is the only way to describe people who deliberately interrupt events like Remembrance Day services. The "snake's navel" is a phrase I heard used by someone to describe a person they felt had no respect at all for others and it is appropriate here.

I listened with disgust to a teenage boy on his phone to someone about the way he had been "dragged" along to a Remembrance Day event yesterday. "And it was all this weird stuff about remembering the f....soldiers who died..." 

I won't go any further than that except to say that he apparently left in the middle of the event and is now being held to account for his complete and utter disrespect. Perhaps his father should have known better than to expect him to go but I happen to have known his grandfather. He was a Vietnam veteran and it would have upset him deeply. His son grew up with a father who had episodes of severe depression as a result of his experiences in Vietnam. He is now father to the boy who appears to believe it is of no importance. 

There are almost no WWII servicemen left but there are still men who served in Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan and in "peacekeeping" roles elsewhere. It is all very well to try and be pacifist and hope for peace but these people deserve support and, for the most part, respect. Taking a few minutes out on the eleventh is the very least we can do. It is very least we can give those men.

The boy on the phone apparently feels differently. He was clearly very angry indeed. He has apparently now been told he will not be able to go to "schoolies" - one of those gatherings of the young around the country to "celebrate" the end of their school lives. It is one of those rites of passage for those who have just finished their final year of school and their final examinations. There were no such events when I left school. We went off to summer jobs. A lucky few packed backpacks and headed for other places. Yes, we had fun too - and plenty of it. It was just different. 

Remembrance Day would come in the middle of the exams and it still does but we would still be reminded to think of it. It was clear this boy's father wants his son to be aware. It is a severe punishment for his disrespectful behaviour. Is it fair? I do not know them well enough to comment. I suspect it might be because this boy is known to be something of a trouble maker. Several weeks ago I heard one of the other students in the library telling him to "F... off if you don't want to work. We do."  The students working in there are generally serious. They are there looking for mutual support and help, not disruptions. If they want to talk more generally they will go outside. He was disrespecting that too.

Perhaps the conflicts are just too distant now. Perhaps all the violence on screen does not seem real. That frightens me. Disrespect for such things frightens me too. The teenager lounging on the railings next to my little parking space has a lot to learn about life - and respect for others.