2010 Remembrance day coming up! Lest we forget!

[Widebrim]

It is now 92 yrs ago that the War to end all Wars was over .
The men and women of that time now belong to the ages.
As a boy I remember looking in awe at the WW1 vets as they stood silently in front of our hometown Cenotaph.
One of these men I remember very well. He was a quiet unassuming man that joined the up at 17 and went oversees serving in the Canadian Field Artillery.
He came out of that war a 21 yr old veteran who had been gassed 3 times , wounded a couple more and a witness to friends and foe alike being killed or maimed. On his forearm was a tattoo of two hands shaking hands. I was told that he and his buddies had all got the same one so as to remember their comradeship after the war ended. Thats about all you could get out of him about what he went thru, choosing instead to keep ithe horror of war inside him as many vets do.
He came home raised a family , worked hard , then tried to enlist again when WW2 started but by then he was a tool and die maker and was needed on the homefront. He did his best and by all accounts led and admirable and unassuming life.
On his dying bed as his lungs started failing and he was coughing, he looked at his son and said " I can still taste the GAS ".
It was then that we realized that the war had never left him his whole life and he had carried it with him.
That man was my grandfather. a man that I loved admired and looked upon as my Hero. No war is worth having..... that would do this to my Granddad !
.
Every year I join thousands of others in honoring these veterans but my Granddad I honor just a little bit more. At my bank years ago, I arranged for my account number to be his military serial number so that everytime I make a transaction I think of him and what he went thru for his country and for me.
I thank him and I thank all the others like him that gave me the life I live and I thank the service men and women that are currently serving to preserve that life yet again.
May they all come home safe.

fleet16b
A grateful grandson

Thank you for that, fleet; quite a story...My great-uncle served with the U.S. Army in the Great War (my grandfather, his brother, served during that time with the Italian Army), and according to my older relatives, he was also gassed. It certainly was the first "modern" war, with the resulting terrible casualties.

 

[bil_maxx]

A beautiful memory of your grandfather. Serves to remind us that war is not glorious, but gory and bloody. I had both grandfathers in wars. My paternal grandfather was in WWI in Italy against Austro-Hungary. He was wounded by a machine gun bullet. I met him twice before he died in 1982 as we live in Canada and he in Italy, and he never seemed inclined to speak of the war. He visited the gigantic war memorial on MonteGrappa, in Veneto, Italy once per year as a remembrance, but never talked about the war with us.

My maternal grandfather was in WWII and he was in all of the Mussolini Italian "crapholes". Albania, Eritrea, Ethiopia and North Africa. Like my other grandfather, he did not speak fondly of his experiences and only spoke of the places he visited.

I realize, as a Canadian, that wars have been fought to preserve peace, justice and freedom, and I am the first at a Remembrance Day ceremony, or anywhere, to thank a veteran for my freedom, but the effect that it has on the soldiers who fought and survived is a high price to pay. It makes me more thankful for all veterans who never seem to be looking for thanks or praise, just respect.

 

[MisterCairo]

Today, Remembrance Day in Canada, I remembered at home, as our military ordered us all NOT to attend in public unless ordered as part of a greatly reduced presence. Uniform proudly still hanging in the closet. What a shame.

Lest we forget.