Remembrance day
Monday, Nov 12, 2007 1:02PM / Standard Entry
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Remembrance Day is always a special day for me -- I remember my father who was a WWII veteran, and I honour the memory of my great uncle who died in November, 1917 during the second battle of Passcendale in Belgium.
My father died ten years ago. When I was a kid, watching the national Remembrance Day celebrations televised from Ottawa, I remember him turning to me, saying, "Do I look as old as those guys?" Every year they look older and frailer, and fewer and fewer of them are left to parade, and participate in the laying of the wreaths at the cenotaph. My father turned very anti-war in his last years. I suppose most old soldiers are the same. He was terribly burdened by his memories, of the bombing of England before D-Day, of losing his comrades once they landed in France, and of the terrible things he saw, especially in Holland. He always said that the real heroes were the ones who never came home.
I suppose that the current Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan will come home with the same burden of memory. And the veterans of Iraq as well. That's the real tragedy of war -- the human cost just goes on and on. I am sure that my own personality was to a certain extent influenced by my father's problems dealing with his memories. And perhaps I've passed those influences on to my own kids. There is no end to it.
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