In Remembrance

With each Remembrance Day, their numbers are fewer.
Just as the passage of time inevitably took the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who served in World War I from us, so it is now rapidly diminishing the once great numbers of those who served in World War II.
And so, each year on this day, on Remembrance Day, it becomes more and more important for those of us born after the two great wars of the last century, to pass down to our children and our children's children, exactly what it is we remember today.
The two minutes' silence that will be observed at ceremonies across Canada this morning at 11 a.m., marks the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month 89 years ago when peace was formally declared ending World War I.
At the time, they called it "the war to end all wars." Sadly, it was not.
Today, we remember not only the 60,000 Canadians killed in World War I from 1914 to 1918, but the more than 40,000 who died serving in World War II from 1939 to 1945, the 516 who died in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, the more than 70 who have died serving in Afghanistan since 2002 and the 114 who have died on UN peacekeeping missions since 1956.
We remember that each of them, in addition to making the ultimate sacrifice for Canada, was also a beloved grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, grandchild, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, friend.
And we remember not only them, but the loved ones they left behind and all those who have been maimed and wounded by war and all those who loved them and continue to love them today.
Remembrance Day is not about glorifying war and indeed, if you talk to them, you will find that war veterans are our greatest living ambassadors for peace.
For unlike the rest of us lucky enough to have lived our lives without knowing war, our veterans know what a brutal and horrible thing it is and that war must always be the last resort in the pursuit of a just peace.
Finally, by remembering their fallen comrades on this day, we honour all those who fought in Canada's wars in the past, and who continue to fight for her in our name today.
And each year on this day, we thank them in the only way we can and in the only way that really counts.
By promising we will remember them and we will teach our children and our children's children about the enormous sacrifices they made for us.
And finally, that the reason we are a strong and free nation today, is that they paid the price freedom demands, and that sometimes, the price freedom demands, is blood.
courtesy of http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Commentary/2007/11/10/4646770.html