We are the dead. Short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders Fields.
– In Flanders Fields, John Mcrae
It was in third grade that I started to understand the importance of Remembrance Day. It was the first time I heard the song A Pittance of Time and although I’m not personally affected by the World Wars, the music video hit home. Remembrance Day is a day for us to honour and remember the men and women who have served, and continue to serve Canada during times of war and peace. We remember the thousands of Canadians who have served throughout our nation’s history and the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives. When I first watched the video, I could definitely relate to the main character who just wanted to get his groceries checked out. Sure, I was about eight years old, so it was reasonable that I didn’t fully comprehend the concept of Remembrance Day. However, the video made me see that the courage and sacrifice that the soldiers had, deserves everyone’s reverence. A couple of weeks have passed since Remembrance Day but I’ve only recently had the time to blog about this. This year, on Nov. 11, I had the pleasure of honouring our soldiers in Europe. I was in France for a school trip and our activities for three consecutive days were all to do with the World Wars. On Nov. 11 we visited Vimy Ridge and were invited to the unveiling of a new monument that commemorates the lives lost during the First World War, by the President of France. The following days we visited Flanders Fields where John Mcrae wrote the renowned poem, In Flanders Fields, and other monuments commemorating Canadian soldiers.
We started off our day with a ceremony in front of the Vimy Ridge Monument. The land surrounding the monument is filled with shell craters and visible trenches. Since it is still dangerous for people to cut the grass because of munitions that never exploded, goats are the ones who graze on the open fields. There was a part of the ceremony where spectators had the opportunity to go up and place their reeves and/or poppies down in front of the monument. This was when I got really emotional. It was nice to see people coming together to remember the thousands of soldiers, but the whole reason as to why we have Remembrance Day was a depressing thought. Before we left, we got to walk through the trenches. The whole time I was replaying scenes of War Horse (a great film that I recommend you watch) and trying to imagine what it was like in the compact space.
The unveiling of “The Ring of Remembrance” was to commemorate all the soldiers who died in the Great War.The names of 580,000 soldiers are listed alphabetically, not by nationality. On the day of the unveiling, the first World War had started exactly 100 years ago. We were invited to the ceremony by the President of France, Francois Hollande as we were in the area and would be representatives of Canada.
At the last ceremony we attended, a couple of students in our group spoke to a woman from New Brunswick with an intriguing story. Her grandfather had served in the great war and he was exceptionally lucky to have survived. He was sent to collect orders for his unit and as he returned, he discovered his men massacred. He never got the chance to deliver the orders. Subsequently after the war, he continued to keep the orders with him at all times in his wallet. When he passed, his great granddaughter made a photocopy of the them. There at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, she lay the orders down side the other reeves, finally fulfilling her great grandfathers task. Learning about her story and the opportunity to visit the multiple memorials in Europe was a very humbling experience like no other.
