In Canada, November 11, Remembrance Day, is also referred to as Poppy Day or Armistice Day. The same day in the US is Veterans Day. In the Netherlands, Remembrance Day is May 4. In Australia and New Zealand the day of the same significance is ANZAC day, which is celebrated on April 25.
Despite different names, dates and times in different countries, what these days have in common is the desire to remember and pay tribute to the men and women who have served their country in war, conflict and peace.
On Remembrance Day in Canada, on the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we all take two minutes from our busy schedules to keep silence. It’s our personal, respectful remembrance for the thousands of heroes who have lost their lives in wars and peacekeeping missions.
Remembrance Day is more than a single day to remember. It is an acknowledgement of, and thanks to, all soldiers and civilians who have risked their lives in war zones, fought in unimaginable conditions and lived every moment wondering if it would be their last.
That realization was brought home to me this summer when I took a trip to Malta. In Valletta, the capital, there is the Commonwealth Memorial for the 2,700 airmen who lost their lives in World War II.
As I walked up to the monument, I found the name I came to see: Ian Alister Colquhoun, my uncle, for whom I am named. He entered the New Zealand Air Force, then trained in NZ and in Winnipeg with the Royal Canadian Airforce. He was then seconded to the Royal British Airforce to join the fighting in Europe in the early stages of World War II, based in Gibraltar, flying Wellington Bombers.
An experienced navigator and pilot with more than 700 hours of flying, his plane was shot down by a German submarine near Sicily. He and the pilot were killed and the other four airmen parachuted out and were picked up by a merchant ship. He was just 24 years old.
Many of you will have similar stories to tell – many sad stories of those who didn’t return and many happier ones of those who did. For me, visiting that memorial in Malta brought home the realization that neither myself, nor my children have had to experience or endure the horrible emotions of war.
It was sobering and sad to sit in front of my uncle’s name. I asked the same question my grandparents must have asked themselves after losing a son at war: for what?
For me, now more than ever, Remembrance Day means more than simply remembering those who have defended us from territorial invasion. On a fundamental level, their bravery has ultimately defended our Canadian values of freedom, democracy and human rights, and has made our country a safer place for those rights to exist.
The two minutes of silence we observe is a mere sliver of time when every minute of every day we are the grateful inheritors of freedom, independence, tolerance, peace and honour.
Let us never forget.
Alister Mathieson