MY REMEMBRANCE DAY REFLECTIONS

MY REMEMBRANCE DAY REFLECTIONS

It is happening again. I am starting to get somewhat nostalgic as Remembrance Day arrives. Of all of the various celebratory days of the year, I always become quite sentimental over November 11, when we honour our victims of war over the past century. No one in my family has ever been lost in war nor been an active participant in any global conflict, so I have not suffered any personal loss, but I am still affected. 

As I reflect upon the reason, it might have something to do with the fact that this not a holiday marked by joy or hope as happens at Christmas and Easter. It is not a holiday that notes some positive development or reason to celebrate like Dominion Day, Labor Day or Thanksgiving. Remembrance Day is a national time to reflect on the passing of many Canadian soldiers. It is a larger version of the anniversary of the death of a parent or family member when we stop to reflect upon our individual losses. 

During my Remembrance Day reflections, I often am forced to remember John Donne’s poem, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” I surmise that the essence of this poem is at the heart of my reason for serious reflection.

This year I have an added dimension to my thoughts. Generally, we watch old videos or movies of soldiers during the First and Second World Wars as they fight for our freedoms. They represent the distant past. At November 11 services we always witness a small group of 90-year-old veterans representing their departed comrades. Their numbers continue to diminish.

Then, for the first time, I just watched a tribute to a “young” veteran on a recent newscast. This young soldier had been involved in Bosnia and Kuwait with the Canadian Army. He represented the newest generation of Canadian soldiers who have seen service in much of the Middle East including Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. We do have young men and women in their thirties and forties who are really veterans of war. The wars were on a different scale but regardless, these young men and women served in some of the hottest trouble spots in the world. Hundreds of Canadian soldiers have been war casualties in the past thirty years. I know that I have never thought of them as war veterans before, but I have certainly now been educated to this fact. 

As the years continue to speed by, we will no longer have any living veterans of the two World Wars, but we will still have a host of “young” veterans. In either case, I am always quite sad on Remembrance Day as I give thanks to those young and old who have fought for me and reminded me that, “I am part of the main and any man's death diminishes me!”

I bow my head in their memory and offer them my thanks for their sacrifice!