The Vancouver Sun. VOICES column Nov. 1999
For My Father and all the Veterans who fought for us
I watched the Remembrance Day ceremony on Parliament Hill from the comfortable surroundings of my family room. Outside my windows rain drizzled. The skies were clear in Ottawa.
I observed our moment of silence and ‘remembered’. I was moved as wreaths were laid, dedications from The Mothers of Canada and a variety of embassies and organizations.
The Governor-General stood in front of the Peace Tower and viewed the hundreds of veterans marching by proudly displaying medals pinned on their overcoats, their memories lining their faces and clouding their eyes, and I swallowed the lump in my throat.
We marked the last Remembrance Day of the century with the pomp and ceremony my generation has become accustomed to.
I am a baby boomer, I have no first hand knowledge of the world at war save the stories I have been told. Year after year I’ve watched Remembrance Day ceremonies and seen our veterans age; now old men and women lay the wreaths and salute the memory of the dead. The passage of time increases the emotion I feel.
I hope veterans alive today realize that the generations they have spawned appreciate the sacrifice they, and those they fought beside, made. It is important they know that we ‘remember’. Not, perhaps, the battle, but the outcome. That we don’t take for granted our way of life or our freedom.
My father is a veteran who served in the navy during the Second World War. Now he is a member of the Royal Canadian Legion and each year proudly sells poppies and shakes the hands of others who share his pride.
His grandchildren interview him for projects at school, innocently asking about his experiences in the war. He shares his stories, they take their notes and the papers they write are graded on punctuation and grammar. Classrooms debate the merit of conscription and discuss the strategy of battles fought more than 50 years ago with academic precision. They are even more removed than I.
Yet, as the sun shone on Parliament Hill and bagpipes droned in the distance, a reporter asked a 12 year old boy how he viewed the ceremony and he ‘remembered’. He said he was glad he hadn’t lived back then because even if you didnt want to go to war you had to – but he was glad the men and women did, because now he had a choice.
And I cried.
So, for my father and all the veterans who fought beside him, thank you. We ‘remember’.
My dad passed away in 2006. I have never met a prouder Canadian. He always belted out Oh Canada whenever our anthem was played — and now I do too, to honor both my country and my dad. I may sing a little off key but my heart is full of the same stuff as his always was, as well as the memory of a very patriotic man. On Remembrance Day, I will remember…
Comments (1)
Got me good with this post! ♡