Early November has arrived in Canada, and that means that Remembrance Day is only a few days away.
Canadians are sporting poppies on their shirts and jackets. They have posted tributes on social media and have switched their profile pictures and cover photos to reflect Remembrance Day. And on Nov. 11, many of us will gather at a designated location in the community for a Remembrance Day service to honour those who perished in combat, those who served and returned home, and those who continue to serve our country.
The ceremony will be outdoors at a cenotaph in many communities. Others, like in Estevan, will have their service indoors; the one in Estevan will be at the Estevan Comprehensive School’s gymnasium.
It will be an opportunity to come together and say “We will remember them.”
We can’t speak for other parts of the country, but in recent years, we’ve seen an uptick in attendance for Remembrance Day in Estevan. After the shootings of two Canadian soldiers in Canada in October 2014, you saw more people turning out at the Estevan Comprehensive School’s cafetorium, back when the service was held in that part of the school.
A decade ago, it was pretty easy to find a seat for the ceremony if you showed up a couple minutes before the service began. But in 2014 and 2015, dozens of people were standing at the back of the cafetorium.
Last year, in honour of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War and due to an expected increase in attendance, the legion moved the ceremony to the school’s gymnasium, and there was the expected larger crowd.
A decision has been made to keep the ceremony at the gymnasium. In the past, the service was held at the cafetorium, and then people shuffled to the school’s courtyard for the cenotaph service. This is a decision that makes sense, because it keeps everyone together in one location.
One thing that has been tough to see is the dwindling number of Second World War veterans at the ceremony. Not that long ago, you had several rows of Second World War veterans seated in the front rows of the ceremony. Now we have very few left in Estevan who served in that war. Sadly, in just a few years, we won’t have any.
Members of the Canadian Forces have continued to serve their country with pride and with the greatest of skill during the Gulf War, the Afghanistan conflict, peacekeeping endeavours and other missions. Some people in the Estevan area have been reservists. But the number of veterans from those missions is much lower than the First or Second World Wars.
Many veterans, regardless of the mission, are reluctant to share their memories from their service. It was an incredibly difficult time, and those who make it home have to carry the memories of seeing their friends die and other experiences that most of us could never comprehend. They will talk about the good times, the friends they made and the parties they went to, but not the tragedy they encountered.
Some have been willing to talk about what they saw on the battlefield, but among those who served in the Second World War, there are few remaining who can actually articulate those memories.
Ultimately, it falls on all of us to take up the oath of remembrance when we vow that “We will remember them.” We might not know the stories of our family members and friends who served in conflict, but we can talk reverently of what they did for the freedoms we enjoy.
They went overseas and they served their country and to preserve it for future generations, even though there was no guarantee they would meet anybody from those generations.
And so we need to remember them. We owe them everything. From the freedom of expression to the freedom of faith to the freedom to be what we were created to be, these are freedoms we wouldn’t have without our veterans.
And that remembrance has to extend beyond Nov. 11 and the days leading up to it, to the other days and weeks of the year.
