What ever would the world do without war? How ever would it have evolved without brave men and women who donned uniforms and weapons when called upon and did their bit “for the side”?
The two latest world wars seemed to have a clear sense of purpose. In my Dad’s eyes, the goal of World War Two was simple: “Defeat Hitler.”
Our debt to veterans is honored on one day each year on this continent. Remembrance Day, it is called, in Canada. Veteran’s Day in the US. There may be similar occasions honoring the fallen in other countries but my research has not advanced that far.
Those who fought for our freedom paved the way for us to continue a way of life. That can be argued ad infinitum but is simply out of place on Remembrance Day on Saturday this year.
I was always struck by how deeply Remembrance Day services affected me. There is something profoundly moving and tender about watching declining old men and women rise shakily from their lawn chairs.
They gain their footing and toss off their lap quilts to salute their flag. Of course, we see broken old people and cannot see the strong, youthful soldiers they remember in their minds’ eye.
War is easy to forget and discount if you aren’t touched by it personally. For my parents, it was a huge and affecting chunk of their adulthood that solidified their pride in and allegiance to their country. It gave them a common purpose and a common cause.
Hitler made an easy, if evasive, target. He was so unarguably evil and psychotic. He surrounded himself with similarly sick souls who shared his inhumanity. Sadly, the harsh truth is that bullying and intimidation are effective short-term tools for pulling and keeping people in line. RIP six million Jews. Hitler’s brownshirts were merely thugs and criminals and they were good at it.
It baffles me how widespread and entrenched the banality of evil can be. Most local Germans living close to concentration camps refuted any knowledge of what had “really been going on”. Perhaps the worst is, had they known, what would or could they have done?
It was heartening in the wake of World War Two to see many international cooperation organizations emerge. Devoted to achieving and maintaining – if not global world peace exactly – then overarching institutions dedicated to wide scale cooperation and information sharing.
The United Nations. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Food and Agriculture Organization. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The World Health Organization. The World Bank. And more than a dozen others.
Spotty and underwhelming as the overall record of United Nations organizations may be, it serves the world to have them in place. Yes, they are big, gangly organizations that don’t have a great track record at fulfilling their mandates or promises of defusing conflict or stopping wars. But I would argue, it is better we have them than not.
The world when the last World Wars took place is not remotely the same world as it is today. Young people today have little to no connection to the costs of war or what exactly the evil was that our ancestors fought.
It is good to have international organizations who ostensibly have an eye on the “big picture” as concerns the world. It is also good that our present military and government sets aside a day a year to thank our veterans.
It serves to remind us who were not there of what others lost and gained for our benefit. Their sacrifice was not only of time. Their youth, and youthful ideals, rarely came home from the front intact.
So I will plant myself somewhere quiet on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour. I will happily spend two minutes to remember those who went before to fight for our freedom and protect us from living in oppression.
I don’t mean to sound like Pollyanna. I don’t much like war either. And, of course, I wish there were better ways to resolve conflict. But November 11th isn’t really about any of that.
It is a collective expression of honor and respect for those gutsy men and women who joined up to join forces against evil when they were most needed. What they left behind is not perfect by a long shot. But they did accomplish this.
Theoretically, we can follow our own inner dictates to build the lives we want. Imperfect, I realize. But when we celebrate our collective victory over the failure of that twisted little Austrian, I know my thanks are abundant. Simply because we don’t have to live in a regime according to the dictates of him and his fellow henchmen.
For that reason alone, I happily say thank you day after day after day to my many ancestors who served, and I will say a special thank you, especially this coming Saturday.
RIP Dad RIP Scott RIP Monty RIP Joyce RIP Frank, et. al.
Expressive Compulsive 