War Memorialised

War memorials serve as reminders of heroism, sacrifice, and an official/acceptable national past. In the case of the UK, militarism and military romanticism, as well as the existence of an imperialist past (and present), determine how memories of war and its dead are made. The chapter explores the role of national myths and state-sponsored patriotic narratives in historical framing, in how the nation’s virtues, triumphs, and past moral victories are repeated now. A sanitised national history provides a usable, exclusive heroism and, at the same time, establishes which casualties are remembered or memorialised and which are not. The author uses the research, findings, and database of the NGO Iraq Body Count.