This is an encore posting from last year's, updated, and now with a closing comment. Many of you commented via email following last year's posting, comments that were reflective, touching, moving, as you remembered the cost of war and your own experiences.
For me, November 11th will always be Remembrance Day. Ninety-one 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, while stationed in Ottawa, Canada, on every November 11th, and as the government's chief press officer (seconded from the Army) I 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. (Since then vets from Bosnia and Afghanistan no doubt take part.) 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.
A closing comment.
Together with the US, and over a dozen other NATO countries which together comprise the UN-authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Canada has maintained a strong commitment to the Afghanistan mission with over 23,000 having served there since 2001.Currently, 2,500 Canadians remained deployed in Kandahar province, which has been described by Afghan President Karzai as "the centre of gravity" for his country.This work has regrettably come at a high cost, however, with Canadian military personnel suffering casualty rates the highest in ISAF as a proportion of troops deployed. To date, Canadian fatalities number 135, many from the regiment I first joined in 1951, the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Alberta, four the sons of former mates I served with in the PPCLI.
The video is by Canadian singer-songwrite Terry Kelly.
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