NO WAR WITH RUSSIA. We’re so used to Scottish comedian Billy Connolly making us laugh that it’s easy to forget just how outspoken he can be when something really matters to him.

And one subject he’s spoken about with real anger and sadness is war.

Billy has never been impressed by the idea of war being presented as something glorious or noble.

What troubles him is the enormous difference between the way wars are remembered and the terrible reality of what happens to the people fighting them.

These are his own words:

‘What horrifies me most about war memorials is that no anti-war sentiments are ever displayed.

It’s as if war is fun or noble, when actually it’s all about shit and snot and blood and guts and soldiers’ stomachs hanging out and people with their faces blown off.

But they never showed that side of it. Perhaps, if they did, there’d be less of it.’

Vietnam war

And then he recalled an image from the Vietnam War that had clearly made a lasting impression on him:

‘I remember seeing a picture of a soldier in Vietnam who was sitting, waiting to die, with his jaw missing. His head now started at the top row of teeth; everything beneath that was gone.

They didn’t put that on the recruitment posters, did they? But that’s what war is to me. And I don’t care who we’re fighting, I don’t hate them enough to do something like that to them.’

That last sentence really stays with you.

Billy isn’t talking about which country is right or wrong, or who deserves to win. He’s talking about what happens to ordinary human beings when countries go to war.

And I think there’s an important point in what he’s saying about remembrance.

We rightly honor those who served, those who lost their lives and those who came home carrying terrible injuries and memories.

But does remembering their sacrifice also mean being completely honest about the horrors they endured? Billy clearly believes it should.

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