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REMEMBRANCE DAY SUNDAY NOVEMBER 11
Remembrance Day this year falls on Sunday November 11th. It is a day to remember the pride and sorrow of those men and women that gave their lives in two great wars that we the living may live in peace and freedom from oppression.
On Sunday in every city and hamlet of our great country we stand in silence. Is it too much to take the time to give thanks? A moment in our busy lives to reflect on the past can seem like an eternity.
Remembrance of the sorrow that excessive wars has cost Canadians is painful. But there is enough time for each of us to find in our own way to pray for peace. A peace justly forged by people and nations of good will to strive to make a better world. To-day we remember those who gave their lives for us.
November 11, 1918 was the end of World War One, which had raged on for four long years. Canada a relatively small country of seven million citizens suffered the loss of 68,000 soldiers who died serving their country. To-day many years later we are honoring the fallen not of one war but two terrible catastrophic conflicts.
The victorious Allies rejoiced in the thought that had not just beaten their enemies but had banished war for all time. The frightful slaughter of the Great War they thought had shown that modern warfare was too horrible, costly in lives and resources for us to repeat.
People of the world they thought would gladly join under the umbrella of the League of Nations together to build a barrier against future outbreaks of this scourge. Sadly this was a vain hope of the soldiers who fought for a better to-morrow. John McCrae, author of in Flanders Fields, reminded us that: "if ye break faith with us with us who die. We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Field."
Twenty years later, 1939 was the start of World War Two where more then sixty million people were killed over a six year period ending with the defeat of the Germans. The United States used the Atomic Bomb to destroy the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima killing thousands of innocent Japanese citizens to finally end the war in 1945.
Since the end of the Second World War we have born witness to conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. Canada lost over one thousand killed in battle and thousands more who came home with physical injuries along with Post Traumatic Symptoms after trying to expel the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It is the 11th anniversary of 9/11 where 3,000 innocent lives where snuffed out in an instant at the World Trade Center in New York City. Death and destruction doesn’t just happen someplace else. No one is immune, there are no safe harbours to hide from man’s inhumanity to man.
When will learn to live with our fellow man in peace and harmony respecting and enjoying the uniqueness of others.? We are all God’s children and in his eyes we are all equal.
A prayer for peace seems appropriate.
"May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease, when a great peace will embrace the whole world.
Then nation will not threaten nation and mankind will not again know war.
For all who live on earth shall realize we have not into being to hate or to destroy.
We have come into being to labour and to love.
Compassionate God, bless the leaders of all nations with the power of compassion."
Let us say:Amen
Len Lesser