Remembrance Day 2010
This was the first Remembrance Day that I didn't see my grandfather. Not because he's dead - he is still alive, 89 years old (or, as he's taken to saying '90 next year!') - but because this is my first Remembrance Day away from home. I'm not homesick, nor do I miss home very much, but I miss seeing him.
He fought in World War Two - not as infantry or anything, but as one of the men who ran the communication lines, sometimes advancing in front of the front. He fought in Italy, where despite the world's attention on D-Day and France (prompting the creation of the song 'We are the D-Day Dodgers'), some of the worst fighting of the war happened.
It is for him, for his compatriots that made it back and those who didn't, for those who fought in wars before and in wars after. For those like (retired) Lt-Gen Romeo Dallaire and the peacekeepers, and all those who gave their lives, or came back wounded (physically, mentally, spiritually). For those serving in Afghanistan now, or had in the past. For those like Captain Nicola Goddard, whose death in Afghanistan inspired the song Highway of Heroes by The Trews (they're from the same hometown as Captain Goddard). For all of them, that is why I remember.
And that is why I go to the cenotaph service each Remembrance Day. I went this year, with my friends N. and C.
But you know one of the saddest (most enraging) things I learned this year about Remembrance Day? Ontario, the province with our country's capital and the largest city, the province with the most people in it, doesn't observe Remembrance Day officially. There is a ceremony at Parliament of course, but it isn't a holiday. It is so much just another day that my aunt's company, based out of Ontario, thought nothing of scheduling a vid-conference for 11.00am on the November 11th. (My aunt, incidentally, and her colleagues, got it re-scheduled - and it is, after all, actually illegal to work on Remembrance Day (for most people) in Nova Scotia!) It's ridiculous.
Two videos under the cut. One of The Trews' song, and the other a clip from 2008 from an American newscaster talking about the Highway of Heroes, for those who don't know what it is.
He fought in World War Two - not as infantry or anything, but as one of the men who ran the communication lines, sometimes advancing in front of the front. He fought in Italy, where despite the world's attention on D-Day and France (prompting the creation of the song 'We are the D-Day Dodgers'), some of the worst fighting of the war happened.
It is for him, for his compatriots that made it back and those who didn't, for those who fought in wars before and in wars after. For those like (retired) Lt-Gen Romeo Dallaire and the peacekeepers, and all those who gave their lives, or came back wounded (physically, mentally, spiritually). For those serving in Afghanistan now, or had in the past. For those like Captain Nicola Goddard, whose death in Afghanistan inspired the song Highway of Heroes by The Trews (they're from the same hometown as Captain Goddard). For all of them, that is why I remember.
And that is why I go to the cenotaph service each Remembrance Day. I went this year, with my friends N. and C.
But you know one of the saddest (most enraging) things I learned this year about Remembrance Day? Ontario, the province with our country's capital and the largest city, the province with the most people in it, doesn't observe Remembrance Day officially. There is a ceremony at Parliament of course, but it isn't a holiday. It is so much just another day that my aunt's company, based out of Ontario, thought nothing of scheduling a vid-conference for 11.00am on the November 11th. (My aunt, incidentally, and her colleagues, got it re-scheduled - and it is, after all, actually illegal to work on Remembrance Day (for most people) in Nova Scotia!) It's ridiculous.
Two videos under the cut. One of The Trews' song, and the other a clip from 2008 from an American newscaster talking about the Highway of Heroes, for those who don't know what it is.
Click to view