T. E. Lawrence was far more than a glamorous, swashbuckling, heroic figure in flowing robes mounted on a camel, leading the Arab tribes against the Turks in World War One.

In Britain and Europe, no event is less forgotten than World War I, or 'The Great War,' as it was called until 1939.

Speaking as somebody who is half English and half Hungarian, World War I still seems to me a familiar and seismic event, as if it had only just ended.

When my elders mentioned 'The War,' they invariably meant that of 1914-1918, even after 1939, for the Second World War was merely the continuation of the first, 'an armistice of 20 years,' as Marshal Foch had accurately predicted at the Versailles Peace Conference, with some changes of side.

World War II was the last 'pure' war. It was purely heroic. There was someone who tried to conquer the world, who tried to exterminate people.

The Philippines was with the U.S. in the Second World War, in the Korean War, in the Vietnam War, and now in the war against terrorism.