Remembrance Day

Both of my parents were veterans of WW II. Mom in the Canadian Women's Army Corps, and Dad in the Royal Canadian Navy. They met after the war, when my Mom was in Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg for her smashed knee, and my Dad was apparently in getting circumcised! War injuries, you know!

My uncles on both sides were all in the forces. Mom's brother Bruce ("Sonny") was in the Italian and German campaigns, I think as a motorcycle messenger. Others were in the air force and army. Dad was on a minesweeper and a frigate (the HMCS Cap de la Madeleine). He also had a parrot for a short time.

My former boss, Jack Stagg, is the Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs in Canada. He is ill right now, so I am thinking of him today as well as of my family members. I am proud of all of them.

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
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.

- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

That war and the one after were NOT about oil.