Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Remembrance Day
This day is meaningful to me. I hope we will keep it for a long time.
I often think, not just on remembrance day, about what the experience of war must be like. I've read so many books and heard so many first-hand accounts, but I wonder -- what would it feel like? Trench warfare with its cold and mud and the stink of blood and rotting flesh. The hunger and thirst and wet and the sores and blisters, and that's before you fight and get injured or see your friends blown to bits beside you.
It's almost unimaginable to people who are safe and warm and well-fed among their loved ones. But life is all of that terrible stuff too. All of that is real and when you're in it, maybe this comfort and normal life is unimaginable after awhile.
Someone very close to me lost his father in the war when he was just a baby. His dad went off to war and never came back, and that loss, or absence, has stayed with this friend all of his life. D's father was in WWII, but thankfully wasn't hurt. Apart from those second-hand experiences, war hasn't touched my life, but I wonder if it might someday. I wonder if there will be another war so big that Canadians will bring in conscription and regular kids will have to go off and fight. I don't think it's an impossibilty. Not at all.
So remembrance day isn't only about remembering, as any veteran will tell you. It's about not forgetting; it's a warning. And it's necessary.
This day is meaningful to me. I hope we will keep it for a long time.
I often think, not just on remembrance day, about what the experience of war must be like. I've read so many books and heard so many first-hand accounts, but I wonder -- what would it feel like? Trench warfare with its cold and mud and the stink of blood and rotting flesh. The hunger and thirst and wet and the sores and blisters, and that's before you fight and get injured or see your friends blown to bits beside you.
It's almost unimaginable to people who are safe and warm and well-fed among their loved ones. But life is all of that terrible stuff too. All of that is real and when you're in it, maybe this comfort and normal life is unimaginable after awhile.
Someone very close to me lost his father in the war when he was just a baby. His dad went off to war and never came back, and that loss, or absence, has stayed with this friend all of his life. D's father was in WWII, but thankfully wasn't hurt. Apart from those second-hand experiences, war hasn't touched my life, but I wonder if it might someday. I wonder if there will be another war so big that Canadians will bring in conscription and regular kids will have to go off and fight. I don't think it's an impossibilty. Not at all.
So remembrance day isn't only about remembering, as any veteran will tell you. It's about not forgetting; it's a warning. And it's necessary.
# posted by becca : 8:17 AM
