Remembrance Day is not about taking a break from school or work.
It’s about respect for the men and women who died to preserve the rights and freedoms that we enjoy.
Were it not for their sacrifice, this world could look vastly different.
Imagine a North America under Nazism.
Personally, I shudder at the thought.
You also have to give respect to the people who fought in the Korean War, the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, the Afghanistan conflict, the invasion of Iraq, the Libyan civil war, the Mali conflict and of course, the ongoing struggle against the Islamic State.
I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two engagements but you know, none of them are by any means a kid’s game.
When you are on the front lines and you take enemy fire, you cannot simply hit reset or click on a respawn site.
War is not Black Ops or Call of Duty.
Sure, life doesn’t often imitate art but at times like this, I always think back to how I felt when I watched both Saving Private Ryan and Enemy At The Gates for the first time.
Sitting in those boats, waiting to be unloaded and knowing they were running full-tilt into heavy machine gun fire must have been one of the scariest moments of those particular vets lives.
Storming the beaches was no easy feat.
Neither was Vimy Ridge.
I’m proud of the men and women of our Armed Forces, that we’ve stuck our heads out to fight for the rights of innocent people and democracy across the globe.
I’m not a warmonger.
I don’t believe in tyranny.
I don’t believe dictators or warlords should prosper and I don’t like seeing pictures of dead children in the news.
My hat goes off to Service Officer Herman Barkemeyer for all of the work he does to ensure that veterans in our community are looked after.
Thank you sir.
Without people like you, the importance of Remembrance Day might be in danger of being lost by the younger generations.
