Lest We Forget Poppy Day

I remember as a child what Poppy Day meant to me, it meant I was to become aware of, and not forget, the horrors of war. That meant not just remembering the individuals who died in war, but the entire horror of war. The horror of war for those who survive is what always makes sense to remember. Witness the trauma and loss, empathize with the horror and suffering of the surviving members of friends and family of the dead. Remember the traumatized surviving soldiers. Remember the destroyed families shattered by witnessing slaughter. Remember the screams of a mother carrying her dead three year old. The dead are easy to remember, to remember the living has always been humanity’s challenge.

Remembrance Day seems tragically dangerous to me, particularly how we observe it in this day and age. We have to be ever cautious that remembrance does not forge jingoism. We must have the courage to remember the horror of war. Remember the weak who die because of the aspirations of the powerful. War can not be fought without politics and money. The five year old child killed or the fallen soldier don’t have the resources to start, fund or maintain a war. Idolizing our soldiers as heroes, a god like stature on par with Hercules is as dangerous as proselytizing a suicide bomber as a martyr. Neither is a hero or a martyr, both are dead people played as pawns in a power mad game of real life chess. Most soldiers I will never know, but their relatives, left behind, destroyed by grief, filled with confusion, agony and often, rage, I will meet. These mourning families often have no choice to continue supporting the war, because to not, means to recognize the senselessness of their loved one’s death. The horror of realizing that without the war dictated by the powerful, their loved one(s) would still be alive, laughing with them once again, is all too much.

Remembrance Day, for me, means to remember the full context of war. How we go to war and how to end war. Wars are started by the stupid and/or mentally ill. I can’t think of an example where that isn’t true. Wars grow from nation to nation because war is as infectious as the Norwalk virus, countries or causes pick it up and can’t shake it until it has run its course. The contagion of war spread and leaves no one untouched and will continue to do so, lest we forget. Lest we forget that the soldiers who are wounded, traumatized and die are just the beginning of remembering. We have to remember how we found our way to war. We have to remember not to hate. We have to remember to rely on diplomacy. We have to remember to not allow our leaders to rationalize war, xenophobia and rage. We have to remember that there is no benevolence in the wealthy and powerful seeking more riches and control for themselves. We have to remember when someone tries to talk us into anger, that we don’t have to be angry. Nothing ends anger faster than listening, patience and thoughtfulness.

Remembering more than the tragedy of dead friends and loved who were killed in war, to grieve them fully is most important, to recognize them as soldiers is secondary. To be respectful to all death and destruction that war is, and always will be, means remembering how not to begin war. To remember the entirety of war offers support to our soldiers beyond the present it offers them support into the future as it will lessen their need to ever have to fight and die. It has been a long time since war was fought on Canadian soil. As far as war goes, we don’t have as much to remember as they do in Europe or Rwanda or the Middle East or the Caucuses or Afghanistan or Pakistan or South East Asia or Guatemala or hundreds of other place on Earth, because we in North America have not had artillery destroy our homes, land mines maim our bodies, had our children die by stray machine gun fire, or push us all so far that we may all become potential killers. So remember the horrors of war so that we never have to fight in Canada. Remember the horror of war in its entirety to ensure we don’t fight wars anywhere on the globe. Remember your loved ones who are living and we will never war again.