***Original published in South Mountain Press, November 9, 2018***

Remembrance Day 2018

By Blair Gilmore, SLt (Ret’d), CD

This Remembrance Day marks the 100^th Anniversary of the end of World War I, also referred to as the Great War or the War to End All Wars. The sheer barbarity, senseless loss of life, and abject futility associated with the entire enterprise which basically ended up as a stalemate shocked the entire world into an abhorrence of military ventures and a pledge to ‘Never Again’.

Of course, just over a generation later, the world was plunged into the maelstrom of World War II. Then only a few short years after the end of that titanic struggle, the Allies were dragged into the Korean War. The world probably would have continued this cycle of unbridled, wholesale barbarity if not for the threat of worldwide nuclear annihilation.

These three conflicts were brutish, inhuman, nightmarish examples of industrial warfare of the likes never witnessed before by humankind. Europe, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and China were facing existential threats to their populations and very way of life.

During WWI, our fledgling nation plus Newfoundland contributed 7% of the nation’s population to uniformed service. A full one million out of eleven million Canadians and Newfoundlanders donned a military uniform during WWII. Plus there were the countless thousands of civilians working tirelessly on the home front contributing to the war effort. Canada, along with the rest of the Allied forces, were on a total war footing and the men on the front lines were not coming home until the job was done.

Traditionally, it has been those hundreds of thousands of dead or maimed Canadian service personnel plus the living veterans of the two World Wars and Korea whom we venerate every 11^th month of the 11^th day at the 11^th hour for two minutes of silence. They were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice no matter the cost.

Thankfully, Canada and her military have not experienced those past levels of wholesale slaughter since the World Wars. Sadly but inevitably, the last of these veterans are passing away due to old age. But that should not lessen the importance or gravitas placed on Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Should there be a difference between 128 families mourning the deaths of their loved ones after the 1944 torpedoing of my great uncle’s ship, HMCS Athabaskan G07, and the 6 families grieving an aircrew’s fiery deaths in the Quebec 1998 Labrador helicopter crash? Unlike many of his shipmates, Able Seaman Bill Trickett survived the sinking and a year as a German POW, then returned to Canada to raise a family. My good friend, Flight Engineer Master Corporal David Gaetz left behind a wife and three young children. Another colleague, Search and Rescue Technician Sergeant Mark Salesse, died during a 2015 Banff ice climbing exercise. A friend of mine held his LAV squad mate while he bled out from a femoral artery wound caused by an IED hit in Afghanistan. The ultimate sacrifice is the same no matter the era.

Then just because bodies are intact does not mean that veteran’s minds and souls were not broken. WWII vets rarely if ever spoke of their battle experiences. But were the horrors they witnessed any less than those seen by the Medak Pocket or Rwandan vets? In Rwanda at the height of the genocide, it got to the point where young children were cut down in front of the Canadians and they were helpless to act. A significant number of those vets have committed suicide and if you have ever met Lieutenant-General (Ret’d) Roméo Dallaire it is obvious that he is carrying 800,000 ghosts on his shoulders. Although the name of the disorder has changed from shell shock and battle fatigue to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Operational Stress Injury, a broken mind is still a broken mind.

When the young men of 1914 and 1939 left Canada for war, there was no fixed date for their return. Unreliable mail service was typically their only contact with the home front. Thankfully, today’s Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel do not go years between returning home. But they still spend years away from their families. The Afghanistan war ran from 2001-14 and 40,000 CAF personnel served in theatre. At various points there would be 2000-3000 Infantry and 5-6 Royal Canadian Navy ships stationed in the war zone. Communication with home was slightly better with a few minutes of satellite phone privileges per day. The typical training/deployment cycle has a sailor or soldier away from home for 12 months out of 18. Was there really a difference between the 1939 young wives and mothers with their modern era counterparts whose husbands were doing five or six tours in the Sandbox or on constant patrols of the Arabian Sea?

Even regular, ‘benign’ peacekeeping CAF deployments are not casualty free. From the 1956 Suez Crisis to the recent so-called ‘peacekeeping’ deployment to Mali, 130 CAF peacekeepers have been killed. Considering the state of Mali’s security situation, it may only be a matter of time before a Canadian flag draped coffin is rolled across the 8 Wing Trenton tarmac.

This year alone, the CAF will conduct 8-9 domestic operations/exercises, 3 large multi-national/NATO exercises, and 19-20 major worldwide operations. For 2018, about 6000 aircrew, sailors, and soldiers will be out ‘doing the business’ on behalf of Canada’s interests. About 1000 CAF warriors are in the combat zones of Iraq and Mali. Today’s world is not engulfed in total war but it is not safe. Thankfully there are still Canadian citizens willing to volunteer to do what needs to be done.

Death is death, sacrifice is sacrifice, and duty is duty no matter the era and no matter the magnitude. Contemporary serving CAF members, veterans, and dead deserve no less gratitude, remembrance, or reverence then those of a century ago. Thankfully the sacrifice suffered by Canada’s military has drastically reduced but the sentiment of ‘We will remember them’ should never diminish.

At sunset this Remembrance Day, there will be a nationwide tolling of the bells commemorating 100 years after the Armistice ended WWI. Please keep our present Canadian guardians in mind while reflecting on Canada’s past military sacrifices.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.