Remembrance Day

So, there seems to be a lot of controversy over Remembrance day this year, with the fact that many people feel we should have this as a stat holiday here in Ontario.  Many of my readers are probably not old enough to remember when it was this way.  When I was in school, we always had the day off, and well shit, we only knew it was a day to remember the wars as it was put and that was pretty much it.  Then somewhere around grade 3 or 4, it was removed as a holiday because it was deemed that none of us actually appreciated it.  I can remember being in school as over the PA things were told about the wars, the sacrifices, the playing of The Last Post, the reading of In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, born in Guelph Ontario where I reside.

Most people honestly do not really understand the sacrifices these soldiers have made for us.  I am here able to write a blog about almost anything because soldiers at some point have died in the past.  I had two uncles who fought in World War II, one who saw the atrocities of the concentration camps and another who was a tail gunner on a bomber.  Both never really talked about the war and it was only recently that the surviving uncle even started to write down what he experienced.  He didn’t want to think about it all those years.

In today’s society, hell let’s say it, going back to the Viet Nam war, no one has welcomed home soldiers like they did in World War II.  These heroes all deserved this.  It doesn’t matter that you disagree with a war, these men are out there for your country, putting their lives on the line, while you sit there playing your video games, screwing your significant others, getting high, or just having the freedoms we have here.

I don’t think anyone really appreciates how close we came to having North America invaded in World War 2.  German POWs were kept in a concentration camp in Bowmanville, Ontario, next to Oshawa, where I grew up.  There was a rebellion there as they tried to escape.  We had Camp X in Whitby, training the spies they sent into occupied Europe, and hell, let’s put it right here, the electron microscope that was used to create the firing grid for the atomic bombs, was Canadian, and taken by the Manhattan Project from the University of Toronto (this story was from one of my profs).  The war was close to home for everyone at that point.  But at the end of the day, everyone chipped in to deal with the evil that was in Europe.  It is a shame that these bits of history are not taught to high school kids, rather war is something that rarely affects them. 

On other notes, no one also understands what our veterans go through.  Even as an author who writes war epics, I don’t know what it is really like.  Many of my scenes are based upon things that push the limits of evil.  But that is all.  I have never talked with veterans, something I would like to do, but you know what, being in school for Remembrance Day, I learned to think about what my uncles went through, and the others and how our veterans are not treated properly, even by their own families.  All this in the minute of silence.

Until we get back to the point where society returns to walking up to a veteran, either welcoming them home or thanking them for their service, and with a hand shake to boot, then dammit we need the students to be educated.  Leave them in school and don’t make this a holiday.  I know the powers that be feel this would honor the veterans, but honestly, we will only forget what the day is all about.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)