Canadian veterans this Remembrance Day: Standing with heroes

Canadian veterans reminisce during a Remembrance Day ceremony. Photo: Dept. of National Defence.

Canadian veterans are heroes in every sense of the word

By Norman Leach  

There was always a biting wind on Remembrance Day in Saskatchewan. Each year, as November 11 dawned, the temperature would plummet, the bitter cold somehow driving home the seriousness of the day.

Bundled layer upon layer I stood proudly at attention at the cenotaph across from Town Hall, in my Boy Scout uniform, looking I am sure vaguely like the Michelin Man.

Beacon columnist Norman Leach.

Yet, as the bugler played and the flags snapped straight in the wind, cracking like gunshots, I never felt the cold. I was too mesmerized by the heroes around me.  In my uniform, beret firmly planted on my head, I stared up in awe at men who must have been old even then. Yet to me, these men, with row on row of medals on their chests, were not old – they were timeless and they were heroes.

Once a year, I got to stand with Canadian veterans who had done wondrous things.  As the minutes ticked away my mind raced with what war must have been like. I imagined myself as a daring pilot, or a brave tank commander or even an infantryman fighting his way through the enemy. I dreamed of my chest covered in medals proving just how brave I was – or would be when I was old enough.

Yet, to the men standing row on row at the cenotaph (it was only later I learned women also served) war was not a grand adventure. War was a duty. Serving in the military was the price of living in the greatest country in the world. To my heroes it was not a question of should we go but we must go. One could not expect to enjoy peace and prosperity when evil existed in the world.

For those who served their reward came not in medals but in standing by their comrades. Their reward was not in glory but in knowing, in their own hearts, that because of them the world was a better place. Their fame was not in daring battles but in surviving to be able to stand at a cenotaph to remember those who had not returned. Their pride was in having done the right thing simply because.

This November 11 I will again, for about the 35th time since I was a boy in Saskatchewan, stand at a cenotaph. I will still be bundled up against the cold but this time I will be with my wife and two young daughters. As my girls stare up in awe at the men and women with rows of medals across their chests I will again marvel at my heroes.

But now I will wonder how anyone so young could have done so much.

In one continuous line from Vimy and Passchendaele through Normandy and Sicily through Korea to nameless villages in Afghanistan brave Canadians continue to serve because it is the right thing to do, because evil still exists, because others need Canada’s help.

As for me, I get to stand with heroes again.