It’s that time of year again when we take a day out of our lives to stop and remember the men and women who made huge sacrifices fighting for others.
Ideally we wouldn’t need a special day to remember.
Ideally there would be no wars to be fought, no blood spilled, and no atrocities inflicted.
Since that isn’t the case, ideally we wouldn’t need a special day to remember because we would remember every day.
But sometimes we need special reminders. One day a year obviously isn’t enough or we wouldn’t still have men, women, and children suffering at the hands of that terrible monster we call War.
It seems that Remembrance Day has less meaning to each generation.
The legions were started to help war veterans having difficulties fitting back into society after returning home from the First World War.
As more wars followed, the number of veterans grew and so did the need to remember the sacrifices they made as they fought, suffered injuries to both mind and body, and were killed.
But these days it seems the faces of the veterans propagated by the media around Veterans Day are growing older and fewer.
Some might even think the veterans’ organizations and legions will become a thing of the past as the old veterans from WWI and WWII vanish into the distant memories of the history books.
Perhaps that makes it even more important now than ever to remember the men and women who fought for others, for their cause, for their freedom. It’s more important because the veterans are not a vanishing breed. On the contrary, wars continue to be fought every day right now and more veterans are returned home injured in mind and body, or for burial, somewhere in the world each and every day.
The veterans of war are not vanishing or dying off; their faces are just becoming unrecognizable to us as new generations of them are created. They are not just the old grandfathers and grandmothers and great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. They are the sisters and brothers, the fathers and mothers, and the sons and daughters. Their faces are decades younger than the veterans whose faces are splashed across the Veterans Day advertisements and newspaper stories.
And, to the newest generation, as with the newest generation for generations past, Remembrance Day is about having a vacation. A day off from school with their parents home from work. A day for learning new songs and poems about stuff they don’t really know with meanings they don’t really understand.
Knowing the importance of it much more than the newest generation does, and seeing how the real meaning is vanishing over generations, I want to make sure my own kids know the significance and the importance. I try to explain it to them, and I know school does the same, and somewhere along the way they will eventually learn the deeper meaning of it all. The sooner the better, and maybe one day they can help the world evolve into a new world where war is a thing of the past.
It is not just about remembering that people died for us long ago, it is about remembering everything that war is. The cruelties and atrocities committed against the innocent. The loss of life, property, and the indignities forced on others. How war makes good people do terrible things and bad people do even worst things. It’s about remembering the victims and the warriors fighting on their behalf.
This year, as my daughters eagerly planned for their day off holiday, I decided it would be a good idea to have them do something to earn that day off, the extra play time, and the extra movie night they wanted. To earn it by showing me what Remembrance Day is to them.
So, I asked them to write me a story or poem about what they think Remembrance Day is about.
This is what they wrote (for the sake of legibility I typed up what they wrote) …
As I’m sure you noticed, the six year old wrote “Happy Remembrance Day” and “Have a Happy Remembrance Day” on her poem.
Now what could possibly be happy about a day dedicated to remembering death and war?
Well, I asked her that. I asked her what makes a Remembrance Day a day to be happy.
Her answer – “A happy Remembrance Day is when you remember that the soldiers died for you.”
Maybe she has a deeper understanding than I thought possible for a six year old.
lvgaudet
