Another sick joke? No thanks!

I find this (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/plans-for-war-memorial-1-6466282 ) quite sad. Disturbing even.
For one thing, there is already a perfectly good war memorial in Ramsey. and public money was spent to make it wheelchair accessible as part of the recent square redevelopment. This means that a contingent of old soldiers and their relatives (which gets smaller and less mobile year on year) can pay their respects on Remembrance Sunday.
While I find that particular Christocentric and jingoistic ceremony absolutely pointless – even offensive - I would never make public comment on or interfere with something which, presumably, brings genuine comfort to those attending. And I have no problem with some of my taxes and rates being spent to make it easier and more comforting.
But in the 21^st century, how sick is a cross as a mark of respect?
Any number of elderly men who fought on both sides of that conflict and their descendants I've spoken to over the years related to me how their lords and masters told them they would prevail because God was on their side. Even if you believed in a deity (which I don't) you would have to ask how he, she or it simultaneously and equally failed to protect millions of innocents on both sides, while seemingly managing to ensure those too rich or powerful to become cannon fodder emerged from that war even richer and more powerful.
So why perpetuate that lie into a new century?
Why spend any public money at all perpetuating a sick joke which will blight the side of a public building for years? I, for one, would find it so awful, so offensive, that I would never again waste time in a (currently very pleasant) public square which has just been renovated at considerable public expense.
If this is just a question of using up central government funds which are going begging, and if the Manx really want to mark the tragic waste of life in a more fitting manner perhaps, instead, they could stop using this centenary as yet another weak excuse to allow MOD recruiters into schools, and try some objective education on the causes, and possible means of averting, wars.