Saturday, November 12, 2022 was a gloriously warm, sunny autumn day in British Columbia. In contrast to Friday, November 11, with its dull skies and icy wind that ripped the poppy from my winter jacket. A day reminiscent of innumerable accounts of frozen battlefields and frostbitten fingers and toes.
The solemn Remembrance Day ceremony I attended featured ranks of cadets and officers, numerous current and retired police officers and firefighters, and an appreciative, reflective crowd, old and young. Familiar music of sorrow and remembrance was performed on pipes, drums, trumpets and flutes.
After the service, I hastened inside the nearby Legion for egg salad sandwiches and a sliver of Nanaimo bar as well as a little warm-up. No getting through the three-deep line-up to fetch a pint but no worries as 11:20 is slightly early for me to down the good stuff. Besides, long drive back home.
My sister introduced me to one of the pipers and told him that since young childhood we have known all the words to every tune they played that day. (My parents’ house was party central to their expat friends with their pipes and kilts, as far back as we can remember). Friday’s piper replied “I didn’t always know there were words – I thought they were just tunes for the pipes!”
Before attending that service I had watched the one from Ottawa (3 hrs ahead of us here on the West Coast). At the National War Memorial, where the Remembrance Day service is held, the first official wreath was laid in respect for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who was also a veteran, as you know, followed by all the other official and personal wreaths. At the conclusion of the proceedings, God Save the King was sung (the first Remembrance Day since the Queen’s passing).
Rabbi Scher, rabbi of a modern orthodox synagogue in Ottawa, and a gifted speaker, gave the following stirring speech, during which two Hawker Hurricanes and a Spitfire performed a fly-past (to honour the Queen, the announcer said).
Rabbi Scher:
At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month when the guns of the First World War at last fell silent, a universal reckoning was in order. What had happened? What had we sacrificed? And most importantly, for what purpose? Year after year on the 11th day of the 11th month we gather to reflect at this solemn time to try to answer these questions.
The answer is as simple as it is painful. The very best and bravest of our nation. The most courageous of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, partners, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. These heroic souls stood on guard, sacrificing their lives, their bodies, their minds, every last bit of who they were.
We know what we lost. We know what was sacrificed. But to what end? At its very essence, it is for freedom. For freedom, an ideal which to this day is being fought for by brave men and women in too many parts of the world. An ideal that is to our great despair becoming harder and harder to take for granted.
In the words [in part] of military veteran Charles M. Province:
It is the Soldier, not the minister, who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to demonstrate.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protestor the freedom to burn the flag.
We live in a country where we are able to take this cherished ideal for granted because of those who understood that life without freedom for their country, for their loved ones, for people they don’t even know is worth fighting for at all costs.
So today, on this national day of reckoning, we first and foremost say thank you. And every day forward we must say thank you again and again for it is in giving thanks that we recognize our national responsibility and our commitment to fulfilling it.
In April 1917 in Northern France Canadian soldiers stormed through sleet, mud and fire to capture Vimy Ridge. As Prime Minister Trudeau [Sr.] once described it: “They came from coast to coast, Francophones, Anglophones, new Canadians, Black Canadians and Indigenous Peoples and battled for four days to achieve this decisive victory. As a great veteran of that storied battle shares, "We went up the ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians."
The story of that battle is the story of each and every one of us. Our cherished soldiers and their families, they are on the front lines. But every one of us must do our part. For we are all in this together. We are all one. We share this responsibility to preserve the sacred ideal of freedom and focus on this responsibility today as we express our commitment to our beloved soldiers and their families, not by simply saying thank you, not by simply supporting our veterans and their families through words but rather through action, with our time, with our attention, and with our resources.
There are so many ways to do so, so many organizations through which we can fulfil our commitment, our sacred commitment, to support the physical and mental health of our veterans and their families as they return from the front lines. That is how we share our gratitude. That is how we sincerely and clearly declare we as Canadians are united, standing in solidarity with the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who have led and continue to lead the way forward.
We affirm that just as you, our cherished soldiers, have made a lifetime commitment to each and every one of us so that we can live, love and breathe freedom, so too do we make a lifetime commitment to you and to your families. May God keep you safe in mind, body and spirit now and far into the future.
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In addition to being a young, dynamic rabbi, Scher is also known for scoring the championship winning goal in his freshman year in the Jewish Men’s Ice Hockey League of Ottawa. Very important and impressive in Canada!
Here’s a brief video about Canada’s National War Memorial (featuring King George VI):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qywHIl0qEoKentish, I enjoy the snippets you write about your early life in England. Have you ever thought about recording them (by voice or in writing) for your family members? I’m sure your reminiscences would be treasured.
I greatly regret not asking my parents more about their youth as well as their own grandparents, uncles and aunts, most of whose names I don’t even know. I would like to have known Mum and Dad as children, through more memories of their lives and times, as well as those of their wider families.
It’s easy to think our lives and thoughts wouldn’t be that interesting to others, even our own kin, but the shortest account, an everyday chat, a mere snippet, can be an intriguing slice of living history, especially to people who share bonds by blood or marriage.
Go for it!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2022 07:40PM by Nightingale.