Lest we forget our glorious dead
As we enter into the month of November, Veterans’ Week and Remembrance Day, the proper occupation of the living is first to honour our heroic dead; next to give thanks to our present day military families for their service and sacrifices; to assist and repair havoc, human and material throughout our glorious nation and wherever there is a need within our global community; to remember and learn aright and apply with courage the lessons of the two World Wars and in the many conflict arenas experienced by our military throughout Canada’s history.
I especially wish to thank the military members of HMCS Scotia for their immediate action in helping to clean up the Naval War Memorial at Point Pleasant Park, Halifax. The names on the memorial are, for the most part, the only markers honouring these gallant heroes who made the supreme sacrifice so that we today may have rights and privileges we enjoy as free Canadian citizens. These fallen men and their memorial should never be used to make political statements and should be respected no matter what one’s motives or cause may be. To those ignorant individuals who defaced the memorial, you have the privilege of expression but not the right to disrespect the gallant dead. May your negative actions assist you in rekindling your knowledge of our past histories sacrifices and make you better aware of all our opportunities to enrich ourselves in a positive collective, cohesive community serving the common good.
Throughout Continental Europe, hundreds of thousands of Canadian and Allied Military heroes lay under foreign soil. Most in marked graves, thousands with no known graves. Under the soil that was trampled and disturbed by man’s weapons of destruction, they rest in the quiet of God’s acre with the brave of the entire world. At death, they left knowing in their hearts they were fighting the good cause. No words can add to their fame, nor, so long as we remember to show our gratitude for their supreme sacrifices, will they be forgotten.
These Glorious Dead were summoned to duty and honour for the freedom and rights of all mankind for which they made the supreme sacrifice. In the words of The Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, at the unveiling of the Cross of Sacrifice, Vimy Ridge, July 3, 1921: “Danger to the treasury of common things — for common things when challenged are the most sacred of all, danger to these things ever stirred our fathers to action, and it has not lost its appeal to their sons.”
Lest We Forget.
John Thomas Rogers, Lt.(N) Retired, B.A., B.Ed. CD
New Glasgow