Rememberance

Well tomorrow is rememberance day, so today is like a friday. My favorite memories of rememberance day are from my cadet years. I remember cold and bitter parades, wearing only my C1's, turtlenecks and thin winter gloves. I remember one parade not having clips on our weapons and having to carry them with our finger in the trigger guard. I remember it feeling like my finger was going to fall off. Standing in Sir Whinston Churchill Square, in front of the war monument, for the laying of the wreaths. I remember having to focus on nothing but my finger for fear of dropping my weapon, and letting my division down. I also remember why I did not want to let them down. I remember the images from "All quiet on the Western Front". I remember learning about Dieppe and Vimmy Ridge. I remember that I stood there in the freezing cold, on peaceful ground, with hot chocolate to follow. While, someone my age, seventy years earlier, was holding a weapon just like the one I had in my hands, but he held it in a freezing cold trench, with someone on the other side of the barbed wire firing shells, and lobbing mustard gas at him. I remember all this, because each rememberance day we all took the time to stop and remember. Had we not taken that time, I might have grown up not believing that people can make a difference, or that all people bleed. I might have grown up thinking that nothing good comes of sacrifice. But I do remember, and thus this rememberance day I will bow my head and say those three words that have been etched into my brain since before time immemorial.....LEST WE FORGET. This rememberance day, I will be spending the day doing those things that those men in those trenches were thinking about, to get them through the long days in the trenches. I will be spending it with friends, in the beautiful town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies. I will be eating ice cream, and if there is snow, i will probably start a snowball fight. Knowing that all those soldiers will be looking down, watching us unjoy our freedom. They will raise their glasses in heaven and say, "Yup Boys, IT WAS WORTH IT". To all those who gave their lives for me to enjoy this freedom, I humbly, and repectfully say "Thank you