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Hello to all my fellow eCanadians and eRepublikans.

Today, I wanted to write to you all with some tales of why we remember our honored dead, and those who serve still.

Like many of you I had family serve in the great world wars. Both my grandfathers served in WWII in very different ways. My mothers father was infantry. The great trench fighters of the days spent many a moon in cold damp and illness ridden fields, guns at the ready and willing to storm any enemy strong hold they were pointed towards. While he never talked about it much, I know he lost many friends and brothers in arms. He was one of the lucky ones who made it back home to Canada after it was all over. I find this to be an amazing feat seeing as he was one of many who stormed the beaches at Juno. I thank him through prayer every rememberance day since his passing in Feb. of 2000. His sacrafice and his ability to endure helped secure our freedom, and I cannot thank him enough for this.

My fathers father, served as a pilot with the 406 wing and the canadian air force. While his job was very different from my other grandfather, the dangers presented to him were just as many and just as deadly. He took command of a bomber squadren and flew many missions over the cities of France and Germany. He took care of his squad as best as he could, sending them all home if the run was to dangerous, however he would continue on alone and kept circling around until his target was hit and his mission was complete. I never heard him talk of this, however I did get a chance to read about it in a local paper leading up to rememberance day one year. Having learned this I gained a far deeper understanding of him and a feeling of pride and awe at his heroism. That year I went out and bought a "thank you" card and gave it to him with a short message: Thank you for being the hero we needed. I am proud to be your grandson." Not that I expected it, but it brought a tear to his eye, and not knowing how to respond to this gesture, he simply saluted me. He passed away just over a year ago, but not before writing and publishing a memoir of the war and all his times in it. For my birthday, just after publication he gifted me the first copy of his book. With his absence, I now thank him through prayer on this day.

My final story is about a woman I met last night in the ER. I unfotunately have come down with the H1N1 virus and needed to get some meds, and I met a woman in the hospital waiting room. She had her 8 month old baby girl there with her who was also showing signs of the flu. She seemed upset, but more than just about her daughter. While I did not speak to her at the hospital, we met up again later at the pharmacy, where she was holding back tears. I approached her and asked how old her daughter was, to which she replied 8 months and began to cry. When I asked if her daughter had the H1N1 she said no thankfully, but was still upset. She made a comment about how it's hard being an army bride with a husband so far away. When I asked her the story, she told me her husband is stationed in Kandahar and was supposed to have been on a convoy the other day, but was replaced last minute. She then told me that the vehicle was hit by a road side bomb, and the man who replaced her husband lost both his legs in the accident. Had he not been held back for other work duties, it would have been him in that car.

I would ask that everyone who stops by to read this take a moment and think how this day touches us all in some way or another. I ask that we remember those who served, those who were lost and those who still fight for the rights and freedoms of Canadians and others world wide.

LEST WE FORGET