By Pepper Parr
November 11, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
The weather was as good as it was going to get for a November Day. A great day for a parade. A fine day to pause, reflect and remember.
With blood on the ground at the base of the National War Memorial and six of our aircraft and a couple of hundred support people in the Middle East in harms way – Canadians have reason to ask themselves: are we safe? Is there something wrong with us as a country – and to reflect on just how much we have going for us and the men and woman who made all this possible.
Canada is at war – not a big war in terms of the resources we have put into it, but a big, big war for the ISIS people. (ISIS stands for The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; which is also translated as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) They want to change fundamentally the way society will function. Could they do that to us? War is a very dangerous game and history tells us that the bad guys do win sometimes.
Our columnist, Mark Gillies did a series of articles on the 38 men from Burlington who were lost in the First Great War. It was surprising how little we knew about them. Gillies is looking forward to the public responding and filling in some of the blanks.
It was disquieting to see armed police officers around the perimeter of the Cenotaph. What would that infantryman at the top of the statute have had to say about that?
The loss of two members of our Armed Forces has brought home to all of us just how much we have to lose. Recognizing our history and understanding what it means to each of us is one of the steps to maintaining the democracy we have.
Cherishing that democracy and practicing it is another step. A 34% voter turnout for a municipal election is not cherishing the democracy we have.
