Remembering is not something to be set aside for a specific day or date in my opinion. We are what we are today, and have what we have today thanks to the men and women who sacrificed, many of them losing their lives, for the peace they believed in.
I was born in 1950, at the end of the second world war. My Dad was in the Canadian Navy, one uncle overseas in the airforce, a second uncle died in Italy as the result of a grenade in his jeep. I do not remember...but I do remember the stories I have been told, and I do realize that I was very lucky to be born in the affluent post-war years.
In Canada there are several permanent memorials to the men and women who fought in World Wars I and II. I'd like to introduce you to just a few of them.
Following the First World War, 1914-1918, there was a strong sentiment in Canada that a memorial should be erected to those who had served their country in that war. It was a war which called for supreme sacrifice, on a scale hitherto unknown, from the people of a young and struggling nation.
In 1925 a world-wide competition was announced to choose a design for a national commemorative war monument, to be erected in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. In January 26, they decided to accept "The Great Response of Canada" designed by Vernon Marsh of Farnborough, Kent, England. His design had captured the "spirit of heroism, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the spirit of all that is noble and great that was exemplified in the lives of those sacrificed in the Great War, and the services rendered by the men and women who went overseas.
The National War Memorial was officially unveiled by His Majesty, King George V1 on May 21, 1939. In the speech he made at that time he stated, "The very soul of the nation is here revealed."
Rising 21 metres from its base, the memorial consists of an arch of granite, and advancing through the arch are 22 bronze figures symbolic of the "Great Response" of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who answered the call to serve.
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