View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Kelly Friesen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: Remembrance Day.
I'll never forget
I'll never forget Remembrance Day of my Grade 12 year in high school. In my English class, everyone had to write a speech about his/her personal hero. Even though it happened a week before Remembrance Day and you could pick anyone as your hero, I expected a handful of people to write on the same topic as me - war veterans. I thought it was a no-brainer with the timing and all that they've done for us; however, I was the only person to write my speech on the men and women who batted for our country's freedom. I honestly was disgusted with some of my classmates. I couldn't believe they'd rank their grandmother or favourite hockey player ahead of people who were willing to sacrifice their lives for them without even knowing them.
That said, I feel a lot of people around my age, I'm 23 years old, take their freedom for granted. They fail to realize that because those brave men and women sacrificed their lives, they get the privilege of choice in our country. It's partially because most people around my age see the causes of war as oil and corrupt politics, but because of this thing called the Internet, there is no excuse for their ignorance.
It's not just my generation, though. Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger made it known last year that not everyone in his province's public school system should have to sit through Remembrance Day programs because it might conflict with their religion. Hate to break it to you Selinger, but those kids wouldn't have freedom of religion if it wasn't for those soldiers. What he said wasn't politically correct; it was an insult to the backbone of our country.
-Kelly Friesen
Important day
We are on the eve of Remembrance Day, one of two days in the year I believe we should all take time to mark.
One is Canada Day, the day we should all take time to think about just how fortunate we are to be Canadian.
Remembrance Day is the other because much of what we take for granted as Canadians remain because of the sacrifices made by men and women through two world conflicts and the Korean War.
As the years grow since the two World Wars, and the number of veterans decline as age claims more of them, their contribution may not be remembered as it once were.
But I will ever remember a neighbour of my grandparents talking of the trenches of the First Word War, his voice sounding as if it were filtered through gravel, a constant reminder of the affect of German mustard gas. He spoke of mud, or rats chewing toes in the dark of night, of comrades there one day, and gone the next.
Once I became a journalist I began to interview veterans, year after year through my so-far 25-year career, and I have seen the pride each had in what they were fighting for on the beaches or Normandy, through the mountains of Italy, in a hundred battles in a hundred foreign places an ocean crossing away from where they were born.
Most were barely teenagers when they heeded the call. They became men facing the German threat to the freedoms of us all.
We shall forever owe them, those that died in battle some 70 years, or more ago, and those who came home to live with the ghosts of battle always with them.
That is why we should attend Remembrance Day ceremonies every Nov. 11. Our veterans deserve that from us all, and it is why I see the day as one of the two days each year we all need to pause to mark.
-Calvin Daniels
Remembering not just what, but why
In the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day, I wear my poppy with pride and sincerity, not only out of respect for those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the conflicts the Day was inaugurated to honour, but in support of the current men and women who wear the maple leaf in service of our nation.
That being said, there is a trend afoot I find somewhat disturbing. I fear we are following our American cousins into blind, fervent-almost hysterical at times-patriotism.
The mere fact I felt compelled to preface this column with a declaration of my support because of a growing 'if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us' attitude, is telling.
The danger is that supporting the troops will become synonymous with unconditionally accepting bad foreign policy; that it ends up stifling conscientious debate on what we are asking those troops-who are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our moms and dads-to do.
I am by no means a pacifist. I believe there are just wars, that sometimes there are lines in the sand that must be drawn. But even just wars are not the glorious enterprises we once believed them to be. War, however necessary, is ugly, period.
I am a member of perhaps the most privileged generation to have ever lived and I don't take that for granted. I have known peace all my life and I am grateful for it.
Let us remember this Remembrance Day not only the great sacrifices of those who have fallen and those who have returned, often severely emotionally scarred, but why they fought in the first place, for the very freedom that allows us to question, criticize and express our opinions without fear of reprisal.
-Thom Barker
