There are many men that served, but I want to take this year to look at the latest crop of veterans.
I would ask that you keep in mind this year, that there are a large number of vets that don't look like vets. Whether they are 43 yr old men like me or 22 year olds.
While The Greatest Generation is dying, there are new veterans to fill in their space on parade, and for me that is the saddest part about this time of year.
Good post. I think there's plenty of respect for the old guard, the WW2, Korea vets. Even the Vietnam vets get it now from most. The under 50 year old guys need it, too. You don't have to agree with the conflict to support the troops, people.
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I'm proud to say my son (grade 10) has been chosen to attend a Remembrance day ceremony at one of the nearby elementary schools nearby and play the Last Post on his trumpet.
Undercoverbrother, thank you for your service.
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After 211 days and 6,000 kilometres travelled on horseback Canadian veteran Paul Nichols has completed his horseback ride across Canada to raise awareness of problems facing modern veterans.
Nichols began his journey in Victoria in April, and on Nov. 9, he made the final leg from Mount Pearl to St. John's, Newfoundland.
"It was incredible. We came into St. John's yesterday and there was a huge crowd at their war memorial. It's a great way to wrap up the ride," Nichols told Radio West host Rebecca Zandbergen.
Nichols made the journey to "re-introduce Canadians to their contemporary veterans," he said. He feels that when Canadians think of veterans, they usually think of veterans of the Second World War or the Korean War, and that means younger veterans — many of whom undergo struggles of their own — are forgotten.
"The truth is, we've got three more generations who've done a hard job for this country, and the very baseline for support is recognition of who we are," he said.
Nichols served in Kosovo during the 1990s, and says he went to "a dark place" when he returned
The article is incorrect about his service. He was on Roto 2 to Croatia, in the former Yugoslavia.
__________________
Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Corporal Jean-Marc H. BECHARD, 6 Aug 1993
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I know there are a lot of mixed feelings in Croatia about the Canadian and other UNPROFOR forces that were there during the war, but as a Croatian-Canadian I appreciate your service. Believe it or not, there are folks in Croatia who are also thankful.
War is, as you know, never a black and white thing. What's good for one group may not necessarily be good for another group. I know you went there with the intention to help people in dangerous situations, and that is extremely brave and admirable.
Good on you for fighting the good fight.
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I have a number of veteran clients in their 90s. One common thread with many of them is that they have never talked about the war afterwards with anybody. Too horrific. So terrible what they had to experience as young men.
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I have a number of veteran clients in their 90s. One common thread with many of them is that they have never talked about the war afterwards with anybody. Too horrific. So terrible what they had to experience as young men.
I understand this, and I don't blame them. But it's also frustrating I guess for me. WWII was the biggest conflict in human history and I think it's important to gather first hand accounts even this far removed from it. I would never, ever, pressure a vet to share though. Ever.
I know there are a lot of mixed feelings in Croatia about the Canadian and other UNPROFOR forces that were there during the war, but as a Croatian-Canadian I appreciate your service. Believe it or not, there are folks in Croatia who are also thankful.
War is, as you know, never a black and white thing. What's good for one group may not necessarily be good for another group. I know you went there with the intention to help people in dangerous situations, and that is extremely brave and admirable.
Good on you for fighting the good fight.
Generally, the elderly (either Croat or Serb) were thankful. Those that were old enough to remember The War, were always happy to see us. They would come out with that black tar coffee, bread, and slivovica for us.
The younger generation, they didn't like us, but we really didn't give a ####. We were very very good at our job, so good, we were moved to the hottest spot in the country.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Corporal Jean-Marc H. BECHARD, 6 Aug 1993
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I've always found In Flanders Fields to be sort of whitewashed and devoid of the emotion needed to get any sense of the actual awful horror that that war must have been, and just not adequate as the sort of symbolic anthem for Remembrance Day it functions as in this country. I always read the below during the moment of silence in the a.m. and wish it was more widely known and thought about.
Quote:
Dulce et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen, 1893–1918
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues ---
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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The venerable Robert Service has always been my favourite.
On the Wire
Robert Service
O God, take the sun from the sky!
It's burning me, scorching me up.
God, can't You hear my cry?
Water! A poor, little cup!
It's laughing, the cursed sun!
See how it swells and swells
Fierce as a hundred hells!
God, will it never have done?
It's searing the flesh on my bones;
It's beating with hammers red
My eyeballs into my head;
It's parching my very moans.
See! It's the size of the sky,
And the sky is a torrent of fire,
Foaming on me as I lie
Here on the wire . . . the wire. . . .
I have a number of veteran clients in their 90s. One common thread with many of them is that they have never talked about the war afterwards with anybody. Too horrific. So terrible what they had to experience as young men.
My grandpa didn't talk about it until later in life. He was lucky, he was in the sky, didn't have to see the destruction close up. He did have to fly back after his bombing runs and watch as his friends never came back. He looked old before his time. He willed himself to live longer than his poor wife. She could do very little for herself in her later years due to horrible arthritis.
He's the kindest man I've ever known. Tomorrow is the day I remember him most, but he is never far from my thoughts.
My wife's grandparents were both vets. Granny was a Sgt in the British army, worked in supply I believe. Her husband was in the Canadian forces, unbelievably re-upped for WW2 in his 40's after surviving mustard gas in WW1. He died in his 50's. She is finally buried with him after almost 5 decades alone.
My respect to all who have walked a post, got in harms way. Made the ultimate sacrifice.
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I have relatives that fought on both sides of WW2 (not for Canada). Even to this day, different branches of the family remember who was on what side. As someone else mentioned, it's never black and white.
Our family also lost 2 people to war in the 1990s (one civilian and one soldier).
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
I know I've mentioned numerous times that my father was a Dieppe veteran. He was with the Essex Scottish Regiment who landed at Red Beach. When I went to Dieppe in 2012 and we stood on that beach at 5:00 am looking out over the water I had such chills at imagining what they faced that morning.
When my father passed away, this was a condolence that was posted online, and it has stayed with me.
I met the Col. 34 years ago when I was a summer intern at Chrysler's Pillette Road van plant. One day, a co-worker asked him how old he was at Dieppe. Ian said he was 19. That was a sobering moment for me. Because I was 19. And likely incapable of enduring the trials he'd suffered. In the years that followed, our paths crossed several times. I came to know him as a man of grace and integrity and tremendous modesty. I am grateful for every minute I spent in his presence.
~
To all veterans, past and present, thank you for your service.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We Will Remember Them
We Will Remember Them
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Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
3. Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.
4. Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred.
5. Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.
6. When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
Exp:
I had a chance this past September to talk to a Minnesota war vet who did a couple of tours in Afghanistan. He was a young man in his early 30's who served as part of the military police in the US Army. His job was to protect high ranking Generals and escort them to where ever they needed to be. On one particular misson his Humvee drove over an IED and both himself and the General were seriously injured. To this day he still suffers PTSD from the incident.
It's quite scarey when you see a grown man drop to the floor and cower in fear when someone drops a plate on the floor. That's all it took to trigger a PTSD response from him.
Remembrance Day Thread 2015
Half a league onward,
