I have been throughout Canada several times and I love the Country. Because I live in Mississippi, I have little contact with Canada. Being a huge hockey fan, I have the NHL Center Ice package on Dish Network. That being said I try to watch Hockey Night In Canada every Saturday night. For the last two years I have watched HNIC the Saturday prior to Remembrance Day and I can't tell you how impressed I am with how HNIC honors that day. For one, everyone wears the Poppy. Everybody praises the soldiers who gave their life without reservation. And, Don Cherry, did his best to talk about the soldiers lost without his voice breaking or cracking for the second year in a row. If you have that kind of support from a Saturday night sports program, I can only imagine how the rest is. Maybe I overlook it somewhat, but I don't see that kind of uniformed support here.

I have to say Canadians know how to set the bar when it comes to honoring veterans, and I am proud to know that we share a continent.

God's Speed to you, your veterans, and their families!!!

There was a very moving and solemn ceremony at the War Memorial in Ottawa today which was attended by HRH Prince Charles, Gov. General Michaelle Jean, both wearing Canadian forces uniforms. Also there was Prime Minister Harper and all of them laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the memorial Cenotaph of the Canadian War Memorial, IIRC.

From the Canadian Press:

quote:

OTTAWA - Memorial guns boomed over Parliament Hill as the country remembered its war dead today in the national Remembrance Day ceremony.


Prince Charles and Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean - both in full military uniform - and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are on hand. They join veterans, soldiers and thousands of Canadians at the National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa.

(...)

The ritual began in bright, if chilly, sunshine with a choir singing O Canada and a bugler playing the haunting notes of The Last Post.

(...)

I received the following from my regimental association and felt the quote is as valid today as when it was posted. The author was a member of our regiment that served as the recon regiment for the Canadian 5th Armoured Division in Italy, and subsequently fought in NW Europe until Germany's surrender.
-----------------------------------------------
The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

As Remembrance Day approaches I am reminded of the wonderful privilege that we all enjoy while living in this beautiful country in safety and the reason that we do so.

It is of course because of the men and women that committed themselves, and those that made the supreme sacrifice of their lives, to ensure that our freedoms remained. Stop if you will for a few short minutes and consider living in a country where at any minute death might occur, and freedoms are scarce if they exist at all, and democracy is just a word. “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few” and so to these men and women we owe our complete and undivided gratitude as the great debt that they amassed will never be paid. It should therefore be with respectful gratitude that our citizens should stop for two minutes of silence to remember and to honor our veterans. To our general population it would be a gesture of respect by proudly wearing a poppy and just stopping every once in a while and silently say thanks for I am sure that we will hear you.

Well done all you veterans you may stand down now, your job is complete. To those currently serving our nation and the reserve regiments say a prayer for their safety and again issue a well done and many thanks. To our countrymen I challenge you to always stand straight and tall and be proud of and honor your country for it is a good one that we have given to you.

They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old

Age shall not weary them, nor do the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Lest We Forget


Trooper Ross Rennie

Governor General’s Horse Guard Reserve 1944/45

Thank you.

Edited: No Links Policy

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