Remembrance Day 2008

For me, November 11th will always be Remembrance Day. Ninety years ago the armistice to end All Wars was signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiegne, France, to take effect at eleven o'clock in the morning - "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." Originally known as Armistice Day, it was changed to Veterans' Day here while renamed Remembrance Day in Canada and much of the rest of the British Commonwealth.

During the late '60s I was stationed in Ottawa, Canada, and every November 11th was responsible for co-ordinating media coverage of the observances at the National War Memorial. Dignitaries of every stripe were there, led by the Queen's representative to Canada, the Governor General. Mounted at the cenotaph were four armed sentries and three sentinels – two flag sentinels and one nursing sister – posted at the foot of the cenotaph.

The first year I had this duty the Governor General was Major-General Georges Vanier, a tall, striking figure (he had an artificial leg), a World War I hero and one of Canada's few Victoria Cross recipients, and very much a soldier's soldier. (His son, Jean Vanier, is the founder of L'Arche)

Everywhere you'd see people wearing the red poppy, the symbol of the Day, remembering the fields of poppies that grew in Flanders, Belgium, where so many of the Allied dead are buried, and which inspired the poem, which even today is almost a national treasure in Canada, "In Flanders Field", by Lt.Col. John McCrae, Canadian Field Artillery. 

What captured me was the military parade to the memorial. Led by contingents from the Royal Canadian Navy (being the senior service, of course), a Canadian Army regiment (often the Canadian Guards Regiment), the Royal Canadian Air Force, there followed the veterans - - First World War, Second World War, Korea. But the group that moved and cheered the crowds most were the few Boer War vets - - a very few proudly marching, albeit some with canes and crutches, some in wheel chairs pushed by Boy Scouts, some in hospital beds, again with Boy Scouts. Headgear properly worn, medals polished, mustaches waxed. 

Each year this contingent grew smaller, until the last year I was there only five Boer War vets made it. And we saluted them, and we cheered them, and we wept.

Whether you call it Armistice, Remembrance, or Veterans'  Day, I still wear my red poppy on November 11th, remembering the fallen.