I’m often conflicted by Remembrance Day. Is it about honouring veterans because they were brutalized? Or is it about honouring their service to the country? Or is it about something else? What do you think? https://billhulet.substack.com/p/meditation-on-a-poppy
It’s about making sure we never forget the lessons that had to be learned the hard way.
It’s about poppies I think. And coat pins.
The white poppy is disrespect and will get well-deserved boomer slap.
I thought I might get this response until I started wearing one. I bought a bunch on line and then carried extras in my pocket to give away if anyone asked for one. The first two I gave away were to a woman in a convenience store. The woman behind the counter asked me where I got that. She had a British accent, I said I bought it on-line and asked her if she knew what it meant. She said she did, that both her and her husband were vets, and she’d really like to have a couple for them to wear. My wife is also a vet and I ran this article by her and she said she liked it a lot.
I think this is part of the problem with the whole poppy thing. People assume they know what they mean to everyone else—when they really are just assuming they know. I’ve been to several ‘peace demos’ (I know, really loaded language there) and seen old vets with chests full of medals taking part in them. Even in WWI and WWII there were ambiguities–and they were a lot more cut-and-dried than Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, etc.
It’s about honoring their sacrifice, whether that sacrifice was their life, their health or (if they were lucky) just a few years of their life being put through a living hell.
Young men died to protect the idea that people should be free to make their own choices. Canada hasn’t been invaded since the war of 1812. These were lives lost in the pursuit of virtue.
Which war was that? I can’t recall any about that.
Both world wars. Canada got involved to protect other nations from imperialism and fascism. Canadian men died for the sake of others so that they may be free of tyranny. People need to remember that sacrifice.
The Nazis almost won that war. People talk lightly about systemic racism when really they have no idea what systemic racism would have looked like if it wasn’t for their sacrifice. There wouldn’t have been anyone left alive to complain about the system if that system was in place.
That’s a pretty ahistorical take on them.
WW1 was for our (Britain’s) imperialism and WW2 was because Germany was getting too powerful.
