Remembrance Day: Thinking of Wars and Deaths 

By E. Maestro

As I write this, Remembrance Day  (also called Poppy Day) ceremonies will take place at various places in Vancouver and all across Canada tomorrow, November 11. It is a memorial day observed since the end of the First World War to honour men and women who served and died, and to remember those who came home from the horrors of the war. 

But World War II happened. The Korean War happened. The Vietnam War. The Yugoslav Wars. The Chinese Revolution. More wars and conflicts around the world, including wars of national liberation, and don’t forget the longest running war of national liberation in Asia, the civil war in the Philippines.  

I have walked through the American cemetery and memorial in Normandy, France that honours American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II. A Memorial Wall holds the names of the missing. The stunning sight of grave markers, rows and rows of them, so perfectly lined up, carry the names of young soldiers who went to war and never came back.

But back to Remembrance Day. A time to remember lives lost, the injured who came back from the wars, physically and mentally injured, and  their families who lost brothers, sisters, husbands/wives, and children. It is also to remember that not all wars are just wars. Also, the war industry is big business, and profitable for corporations and capitalists.

Remembrance Day also reminds us that many objected to going to war, the war resisters or the conscientious objectors. Among them was  Muhammad Ali, the famous boxer, who refused to serve in the Vietnam War. His famous quote:  “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong … They never called me nigger.” 

At the St. Mary the Virgin South Hill – Anglican Church, November 9th was Remembrance Sunday. The Royal Canadian Legion and the Army, Navy & Air Force (ANAF) veterans joined the congregation for Remembrance Sunday. The Colour Party came forward to deposit the Colours by the altar. Two Remembrance Day wreaths were carried by Grefa, the Rector’s Warden, and by one of the veterans up to the altar. The children came forward and offered red roses in front of the two Honour Rolls in the church. The Last Post was played followed by two minutes of silence and the haunting notes of the Reveille (Rouse). 

Near the end of the service, Rev. Expedito Farinas gathered the veterans by the memorial alter to light the candles and pray for those who served and died. The Colour Party marched to retrieve the Colours from the altar at the end of the service.

Tomorrow, November 11, I will light a candle for my father who fought in the Korean War in the early 1950s and survived the horrors of war. And he never talked about the war. ###

 Photo Credits: St. Mary the Virgin South Hill church

Pic 1

Remembrance Sunday: Rev.Farinas, the congregation and The Royal Canadian Legion and the Army, Navy & Air Force (ANAF) veterans

Pic 2 

Top:Rev. Farinas and The Royal Canadian Legion and the Army, Navy & Air Force (ANAF) veterans; Lest we forget cake at the fellowship Bottom: Rev. Farinas and the Colour Party