The annual jingoistic festival of Remembrance Day has unleashed an unhealthy mix of nationalism and romanticism about military conflicts involving British and Commonwealth military personnel.

So it's worth lifting the stone to examine some of the unsavoury aspects of war, which the mainstream media will carefully overlook.

One of the ironies of the "celebrations" is the way racist and fascist groups such as the English Defence League hijack the event to posture their rabid nationalism and xenophobia.

Most of their members probably have no idea about the numbers of black and other ethnic minority people who, as part of the Commonwealth, enlisted in the fight against the kaiser's imperial Germany in the first world war and again against Hitler's nazis in the second world war.

Their contribution to the defence of Britain and its allies was carefully airbrushed from history until fairly recently.

In an interview for the Guardian, in November 2008, Jamaican George Blackman recalled volunteering for the West Indies Regiment which was sent to France in 1915 to join thousands of Indians who had arrived earlier.

Enthusiasm for the battle was widespread across the Caribbean.

While some declared it a white man's war, leaders and thinkers such as the revered Marcus Garvey said young men from the islands should fight in order to prove their loyalty and to be treated as equals.

Publicly the inept warmonger General Kitchener welcomed the volunteers from all over the Commonwealth, but Kitchener's private attitude was that black soldiers should never be allowed at the front alongside white soldiers.

However the enormous losses made it inevitable. When they arrived, they often found that fighting was to be done by white soldiers only - black soldiers were assigned the dirty, dangerous jobs of loading ammunition, laying telephone wires and digging trenches.

Casual racism from their white "comrades" was common and even German POWs were not prevented from hurling racist abuse at the black soldiers.

The shambolic strategy and public school insularity of the British military chiefs meant that they made catastrophic blunders costing millions of lives, thus ensuring that black soldiers had to be armed to defend against superior German tactics.

Four million Commonwealth citizens enlisted to fight in both world wars taking tens of thousands of fatalities, yet their contribution was barely acknowledged for almost a century.

The parades and ceremonies across the country won't include many black people because not only did they find their contribution ignored but the "War to end all wars" and "Land fit for heroes" slogans soon proved to be even more hollow for them than for the white working class who returned to slum housing, unemployment and poverty.

Both black people and the white working class soon realised that they had been used as cannon fodder in capitalist wars, which enriched the ruling elite and provided great business for profiteers in the tattered remains of the postwar British economy.

Equally hidden from public discourse is how the wars affected the mental health of those who saw combat.

Take, for example, the 306 men who were executed by firing squad during world war I for alleged cowardice.

Recent evidence supports the notion, widely known at the time, that these men were suffering from "shell shock" - or in today's more enlightened medical environment post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

After years of campaigning, the Ministry of Defence and the Blair government in 2006 were finally forced to grant pardons for these men.

But the stigma and shame of having a son, husband or uncle branded a coward has echoed through generations, exaggerating those families' pain and suffering at the death of a loved one.

And only in the past few years has the MoD taken any serious steps to acknowledge the degree of suffering endured by veterans from Korea, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Overwhelming evidence of PTSD and other mental health problems which erupt in the form of domestic violence, alcoholism, homelessness and suicide attempts has forced the government to be more open in acknowledging the impact modern warfare has, especially on young working-class soldiers who often are recruited from areas of high unemployment, social deprivation and troubled family circumstances.

They are especially vulnerable young people and research proves that the rate of suicide among young veterans is three times higher that their civilian counterparts.

Belatedly the MoD has put money and expertise into the problem.

Yet the real numbers who suffer while in service or as veterans remains hidden due to the shame and stigma experienced by military personnel in admitting that they are suffering with mental health problems.

The macho nature and bullying atmosphere, particularly in the army, stops many coming forward to report problems, afraid of the consequences of being branded "soft" or jeopardising their career prospects with a blot on their medical record.

So behind the tearful nostalgia of elderly soldiers and survivor guilt embroidered by nationalism there are other aspects of war that are carefully sidestepped while television pictures capture the neat rows of marchers, medals and flag-wavers commemorating the needless slaughter of millions of citizens sacrificed on the altar of capitalism and imperialism.