Today Canadians stand in a moment of silent contemplation. Its the day when grown men are given the honor of crying in sorrow.

It was a unique privilege to stand in ceremony with the lucky survivors of the last great war. Few survive now, and they are venerated. This precious ceremony, this precious Canada has been hijacked by cowardly politicians embracing this day for nothing else than selfishly clutching onto power. There are those who want to make this a day off. That's not the purpose of this day. They joined to; do a job. Then so must we all or the real purpose of the memorial is lost. This is a day of duty, its a day of work where collectively the nation, the individual sets aside activity for one, two, three minutes, or even a moment in silent thought remembering those who died in service.

I asked father, his contemporaries through the years their views. They shuddered at being called heroes. They all spoke in various words and ways. Essentially it boiled down to one idea easily embraced in five words: War is a dirty business.

This day we remember those who gave their lives in defense of Canada and allies. Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, York, War of 1812, Fenian Raids, Batoche, Boer War, World War I, Vimy Ridge, Passchendale, World War II, Dieppe, Battle of Britain, Battle of the Atlantic, Sicily, Ortona, The Clearance of the Road to Rome, D-Day, Verriere Ridge, Operation Totalize, Caen, Reichswald, Calais, Belgium, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Holland, Battle of the Hochwald Gap, Korean War, Kapyong, Israel-Palestine, Cyprus, Bosnia, Bihac Pocket, Afghanistan. These are just a few of the battles and peace making operations that Canadian Armed Forces directly engaged in.
... Canadians don't usually celebrate or idolize individual commanding officers, it is usually others that put medals on the chests of the brave. Canadians remember the regiments and units. At this moment though, it is time to remember those who gave their lives.

... I post two favourite poems in their memory.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

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.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

- John McRae

...

(Note: This is a version of the Gettysburg Address. While it is American, it is entirely appropriate when remembering war dead. Its a short speech, but really it is so well written I consider it also a poem.)

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

- Abraham Lincoln