Remembrance Day

We read the poem In Flanders Fields every Remembrance Day but do we really know what the poem actually means to those who lived it. The solders who fought over seas were so young some were as young as 16 when they joined the thousands of people young and old to fight for a better tomorrow and for a peaceful world. Some were just like you and me, full of dreams for tomorrow, they left behind their families, their girlfriends, some even their wives and children to go off to unknown lands to risk their lives for the future generations. Maybe now more than ever we should be thanking these young men and women for fighting and giving us the next generations a better tomorrow and peace in our country.
The man who wrote In Flanders Field was a young doctor who probably had seen many a young solder pass through his operating table with the loss of a limb, to die, to never again have the pleasure of seeing another sun set while sitting out on their back porch. He saw the war for what it really was and how it brought a lot of pain and suffering for all who were involved. While sitting on the step of an ambulance with the battle of Ypres ragging on in front of his eyes he wrote the lines of a poem in his journal. He never could of known that years later after he was dead and gone these few lines of a poem that he had written would be instilled in the hearts of many around the world and become a world famous poem.
The solders who fought were no more than young men and women who had no idea of what they would encounter when they got into battle over seas. They were told “ go enlist in the army, fight for your fellow man come home a hero”. But they never could imagine what they would face when they found themselves in the mist of war. Where the moto is kill or be killed. As for the poor retch’s who got stuck in the trenches they were faced with a war all their own between mother nature and themselves. These poor solders not only had the stress of war ridding on them but they also had to endure many hardships such as being pushed in to any way possible to sleep along with six or seven men, not to mention all the diseases that went along with living in such a state.
We can only try to imagine what those solders we now remember today had to endure in order to gain our freedom. I mean they sat in the trenches waiting for the command to go out into battle to kill the enemy. Can you imagine what it was like watching your fellow solders fall all around you, your best friends dying and you can’t do anything to help their pain. All you have are two choices” 1. You can risk your life to save that of your friend and risk the both of you dying there in an unknown land or 2. You could run as fast as you can and keep shooting the enemy in order to live another day, fight on and get out of this war and back home. In order to stay alive these solders had to keep on fighting until they could not fight anymore due to some injury. If their injuries were bad enough and they couldn’t fight anymore they were allowed to be sent home but they would live with the grim horror of the war and the horrible memories of the front will forever haunt them.
We ourselves can never imagine what it was like in battle because we have never lived through a war. Even now we our country may be at war with Afghanistan but we really are not living through it as those people did in the world wars. Over here in Canada we are still at peace and we only see the war on television but back when the world wars took place everyone no matter where you were was involved in some way.
As the last stanza In Flanders Fields states: “Take up our quarrel with the foe; to you, from failing hands we throw, the torch; be yours to hold high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, through the poppies grow In Flanders Fields”. This stanza says a lot about what we today are starting to do. Many of us young people think of Remembrance Day as just another holiday but are we really thinking about why we have this holiday? I think we are not. I believe that somehow in some way we have lost this exact thing that John MacCrae was talking about. He said that if we ever forgot what the solders who died did for us they would not rest in their graves and it is sad to think that we ever have. I mean we should take remembrance day as a serious holiday and not think of it as another day out of school. Now more than ever with the solders fighting over in Afghanistan against terrorists we should be remembering the solders who have died in world war one and two and also we should remember these brave solders who are also doing what their fore fathers did in the great world wars and that is fighting for freedom and peace for all.
So next time you read the poem In Flanders Fields by Leutenant John McCrae on November 11th, Remembrance Day please take a moment to think about what I have said and wonder what the world would have been like if the solders who fought in the great world wars had not done so. Please think of this day as a day to honour those who gave so much of their young lives, dying so we might live and we only take an hour out of our busy lives to think of them, when they thought of the future generations every day as they fought for peace and freedom. I believe that we should be very grateful for those brave young men and woman who went into battle in unknown lands to fight for the future generations freedom and peace for the world. We should be remembering them not only on this one day but every day of our lives as we wake up and see the sun as a new day breaks before us. We should be thanking them every day for fighting in those bloodily battles so that we might have freedom and live in a land of peace. Thank you the solders who fought in unknown battles so that we might live for a better tomorrow and now we remember you, and always will keep on remembering those grim months in history when so many people all around the world were lost in battle and now lie in graves sites never to return again to see the sun of a new day or to feel the warmth of someone you love close by. As John McCrae so nobly wrote “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” unquote.