Remembrance Day (II)

I have to say that I was pretty impressed with last week's Remembrance Day commemorations. The turn out in Ottawa was big, and the speeches were pretty much on the money. There weren't any moron protesters around, or if there were, you didn't see them on the evening news highlights.

I took a stroll past a Canadian Legion last night. Someone had put white crosses out in front, wreathed with poppies. Each cross bore the name of a conflict, with the number of Canadian dead written beneath it. WWI and WWII are the fights that most come to mind on Remembrance Day, but I was surprised to see that the Boer War had its own cross, as well as Korea and Afghanistan. Something called "Peacekeeping" also had its own cross.

The numbers game is tricky. 69 dead on an Afghanistan cross seems somehow poignant when compared to the 60 000 of WWI. When the number of dead grows above a few thousand, it's hard to remember them as human beings as opposed to "a number." Then you stop and think, and you are floored by that number: 60 000. Another 40 000 for WWII. That's 100 000 men that left Canada in the space of thirty years and got shot, bombed, and gassed on a foreign shore. They slept in mud and crap, froze to death in European winter, and never came home. When compared to that, 69 doesn't seem to warrant the panicky headlines on the Toronto Star every time a soldier gets hit by friendly fire.

It's no novel statement to say that our perceptions of war and death have changed beyond all recognition. 69 deaths in several years would have made yesterday's generals yell with delight. 69? Compared to Vimy Ridge, the number is ludicrously small. 10 000 casualties were suffered in a few days when taking Vimy Ridge in WWI, with over three thousand men dead.

There's no way a war like that could be fought today. The press would never stand for it, and the public would freak out. Times have changed. 4 dead men hit by an American bomb in Afghanistan sits on the front pages for weeks and demands an inquest.

Still, seeing the Canadian people pay honor to all of Canada's fallen is something to take heart in. Perhaps things are not sliding downhill so fast for this country after all.