28 Replies to “They Shall Not Grow Old”

  2. My Dad and Uncle were Leading Aircraftmen in the RCAF. In England for a bit over 1 year before the war ended. My Dad said his worst duty was cleaning body parts from returning bombers. These were guys he knew. He didn’t talk about it much.

    Many from my small town did not return. One was my mother’s first cousin. She always told me the family was never the same after he was killed on April 22, 1945 at the age of 21. He tried to join up at 16 and was accepted at 17. He joined the Rocky Mountain Rangers and was in Alaska to help the Americans remove the Japanese from the Aleutians.
    He returned to BC and transferred to the Canadian Scottish Regiment. He rose to the rank of Captain and then asked for a reduction in rank to Lieutenant so he could see combat in Europe. He was killed in Wieborgen, Holland when a German artillery shell hit the command center for the attack his company was conducting.

    I visited his grave in the Holten Canadian War Cemetery. My mother had asked me to pay that respect if I ever returned to Europe. Looking at all those graves left me cold. All those boys sacrificed because the Euros could not manage their affairs. To this day they do no better and I would never let my grandsons ever go there to fight.
    When I was in Normandy I found out that 65% of the American dead were sent home. IMHO the Canadian boys should have been returned as well. Canada has no Arlington but should. The Canadian dead are divorced from their country and their families never able to pay them their respect. The vets that started the effort to build the Juno Beach Center were so right when they said they were embarrassed to see how the sacrifice by so many young Canadians are not recognized.

    My generation will be the last that will remember so clearly what our parents sacrificed. I will never forget.

  3. They were the very best of us, the cream. God Bless Them. Go to your local Cenotaph today and read their names out loud and remember. I will be going with my 4 Grand daughters and an old WW2 vet who has no one left in his 90’s. It is cold In Northern Alberta this am. But he will be warm and fussed over and respected and cherished. And not just today one day a year.

  5. It didn’t stop Groper from it being all about him today. No moment to waste, he had to selfie the crowd today.

  6. In 2007 my Battle Group lost 26 KIA in both Helmand + Kandahar provinces. My own unit kept a Kill Sheet; 102 Taliban killed.
    Then in 2011 we “only” lost 3 guys at same place, RC South.

    I remember them every day.

  7. My maternal grandfather was seriously injured in WW1 spending 15 months in hospital recovering. Maternal uncle survived Dieppe with RCEME and later landed on Juno Beach to help free Europe. My Dad served as an electrician in NFLD with a PBY squadron during WW2. My Mom was a clerk in Manning Depot in Mont Jolie Quebec during WW2. Dad went to the Congo crisis with the UN in the 60’s. My wife’s brother in law was with the CAF for 38 years retiring as head of recruiting. His daughter was a medic and did three tours of Afghanistan and then went to Africa for the Ebola crisis. I originally wanted to join the Canadian Forces but eventually served in the RCMP for 21 yrs. Heading off to the Cenotaph here in Comox shortly.

  8. Don’t want to be a wet blanket on this sacred of days, having benefitted directly myself because of our brave Canadian men and women in uniform but I happened upon a YouTube video of World War 1 the other night, and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t, I was absolutely stunned and angered that about 25 Canadian soldiers, about 300 in total from the Commonwealth were court martialed than executed for various offences, some for no other reason than to make an example for the others in the trenches. Some believe it or not for being…”shell shocked”.
    Bear in mind most of these kids volunteered and weren’t conscripted.
    As if witnessing the slaughter in no man’s land wasn’t enough these poor lads were in constant fear of their own officers.
    Australia of course gave Britain a big fat “NO!” with respect to having their soldiers executed. Good on them.
    “Shot at Dawn” is the video. Warning: You’ll be angered.

  9. I missed the wars. I joined the RCAF pilot training in the 60s. I left the air force; in hindsight it was a good decision as the life style is ruff. I now ask myself ‘why get sucked into a useless war to die for nothing?’.

  10. From my Dad’s obituary following his death in December, 2015…

    His first seven years were lived in India with his parents, then in boarding schools in Scotland (he only saw his parents three times in those ten years), until he was old enough to enlist in the British Army to fight in WWII. He fought in Burma as an Officer Cadet and then as a Private with the Queen’s Royal Regiment. Three near misses proved that he was like a cat with lives to spare. In one instance, he was the leader of a section until a more senior officer took his place. Two days later, a grenade landed at the feet of his replacement. If the switch had not occurred, the grenade could have landed at Alex’s feet. Not long after that, Alex was ordered to scout a ridge ahead of his company with 10 other men. He was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper and while recovering in hospital, the plane flying the rest of his platoon was shot down with no one surviving

    Thanks Dad.

  11. November 11 is the only day when our masters are happy to pretend to be grateful that so many young white men of humble background—the same men they blame the rest of the year for all the world’s problems—were willing to die for their masters’ sins in wars triggered by the masters’ greed, vanity or plain negligence and incompetence.

    Our masters still prefer young white men for use as cannon fodder, as such men can be trusted to love their country enough to die for it—far more than a Muslim or a Chinaman resident in the West can. In fact, that is the only job for which our masters will still hire a young white man with a basic education. Every other job that needs doing can be outsourced or done by a Third Worlder for pocket change.

    That’s why (as Don Cherry observed) nobody wears poppies in downtown Toronto. Nobody they know has been blown to bloody meat helping to keep Saudi oil flowing to China, or is ever likely to be.

    Enjoy your day off, if you got one. Those who lie in Flanders fields will get little rest. Not this year, not any year till their posterity finally take up their quarrel in earnest with the real foe—by whom I don’t mean a frightened boy in a German uniform.

    1. “To keep Saudi Oil flowing up the St. Lawrence.” Fixed it for you..
      We went to the cenotaph in Airdrie today, no, not the warm indoor one where they thank everyone for their corporate donations, but the real one, where we thank the veterans for their service! Least I can do Is stand outside in the cold for a few minutes and try to imagine, if only for a second, what it must have been like to be in a trench, under fire!
      Later, we went to the museum, where they have a small memorial with crosses and pictures of the people that died in Afghanistan. There was a nice lady Mountie there paying tribute to the fallen. Sad to see so many young people in their twenties who gave the ultimate sacrifice, the causes listed were mostly “IED” or “Roadside Bomb”.
      Lest we forget..

  12. My thanks to all the posters so far. Truly a thoughtful thread, with so many personal stories and perspectives.

  13. The dead never grow old. I was born in the early stages of the war. My Dad never left the country, never called himself a veteran. Was never a legion member yet had a full military burial. We still do not know what our Dad did during the war.

  14. 11:00am on the West coast and I remembered both my grandfathers although I never had the opportunity to meet either of them. Both served in WWI, in units of HLI and the RA, and both returned. And I remember my dad’s brothers and sisters who all served and fortunately returned after WWII. Watching the ceremonies I couldn’t get over the hypocrisy on display today as the politicians laid the wreaths and mouthed the platitudes. They were there to honour the dead and living that sacrificed so much, some their all, to preserve the freedom and ideals that have gifted us such a wonderful life and nation today in Canada and the rest of the free West. These same politicians that set aside one day of Remembrance and profess gratitude are the same charlatans that are hell bent on destroying the country for the other 364. They have turned this country that our ancestors sacrificed and died for into a “new post national state”, they have no respect for our armed forces, no respect for our history, no respect for the beliefs and ideals that allow them to sit in Parliament as our representatives. The constantly denigrate the ideals that have given us the lifestyle that we have today, and then they show up on November 11 and lay a wreath at a Cenotaph and think that they are showing homage.

    Well enough of the rant I’ll quietly sit and have a drink tonight to remember my ancestors and the sacrifices they made over the years, the time, toil, sweat and blood that they gave unflinchingly in our various times of trouble, and then I’ll quietly offer a prayer that they can forgive me for allowing these abominable politicians to throw it all away. For without a doubt we have allowed ourselves to be led by a rabble that did not “Pick up the Torch”.

  16. My generation never really had a war. My life was bracketed by the Korean Conflict and the Afghanistan Campaign. I grew up watching the Vietnam war on T.V. thru the evening news. But my grandfather spent time at “wipers” and a few other front line hot spots. My dad visited the Scheldt Peninsula in Holland. Neither spoke of their time in Europe to me and I am glad really that I didn’t have to listen to any horror stories. But I am very proud of their contributions and more than a little happy they both came home alive.
    Never forget the loss’ and impact on those that survived.

  17. My uncle went down with HMS Curacoa

    The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) honours the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First and Second World Wars, and ensures they will never be forgotten.

    https://www.cwgc.org

    MORGAN
    Ordnance Artificer 4th Class C/MX 65549
    FRANCIS JOSEPH

    02 October 1942
    Age 25 CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL 63, 2.
    Royal Navy
    United Kingdom

  18. And here I thought that Remembrance Day was to honor those who fought and died for our right to say things other people don’t like.
    Guess I was wrong.

  19. The military completely messed-up the mind of my alcoholic father who enlisted after Pearl Harbor at 17yo. He never saw combat, and was actually stationed at the Pentagon for a short while (aerial photography reconnaissance analysis). But he never learned how to responsibly take care of himself. It’s not the direct responsibility of the military, except I am convinced he would have been a very different person had he not had an extended mommy-period in his life where someone else controlled everything he did.

    My point? There is a personal COST to everyone serving in the military whether they are KIA, MIA, PTSD, or just messed up from being told when to get up, when to eat, etc. We DO OWE a debt of gratitude (and more) to our Veterans.

    Personally, I LOVE the annual poppy display. My kid was in London during Remembrance Day a few years ago, and said the displays were spectacular and so very respectful. Wish we had something like that here in the States … but we’ve had to settle for American Flags. That’s good enough, I guess.

  20. 1 Samuel 8:10-18 KJV
    (10)  And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.
    (11)  And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
    (12)  And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
    (13)  And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
    (14)  And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
    (15)  And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
    (16)  And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
    (17)  He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
    (18)  And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.

  21. To the tune of Vivaldi’s rain, also known as the largo from winter in The Four Seasons.

    Requiem for the fallen
    The horns and the pipes are calling
    In Trenches, muddy,
    On the ships, out at sea
    The airmen on the breeze
    ‘Ere by guns or disease
    Many fell.

    Beloved Sons
    And fathers… gone
    Most every one
    Is sorely miss-ed
    God keep you until we meeeeeet again.

    Requiem for the fallen
    You’re gone but not forgotten
    We gather in the winds of autumn
    We’ll walk well-worn paths
    to the old cenotaphs
    Where your brothers come back
    To salute…
    As the poppies on our hearts say, we remember,
    So we gather at these places each November
    In peace, rest, remembered ones

  22. Kenji….
    I worked in Wausau, Wi over an 8 month period here back in 2018..Doing QA Inspection at a Major Steel Mfg Facility for Mb Hydro.

    Having Weekends off, I decided to take a drive down to Oshkosh and in doing so, took all the country roads I could find. To say I was impressed and big time humbled at the numerous small Legion outposts I encountered – EACH AND EVERY one of them well tended, flowers along with some artilcles of war stationed (a Pershing Tank or a Huey), around said post…and in particular, in the Center, a Plaque with the names of those who did not return beit Afganistan, Iraq, Vietnam or WWII.

    I was compelled to stop and pay my respects. My Dad was incarcerated in a German Salve Labour Kamp (4 years). That Kamp was liberated by a group of American soldiers and a Sherman tank.

    Those scenes will stay with me forever …
    Lest we forget indeed. Dad passed away in 2018 – 93 yrs.

    1. I salute you and your dad.

      I’ve read that the Sherman tanks were downright primitive compared to the German Tiger tanks … however … we produced so many more of the Sherman’s, and the Tigers were “too good” and too fussy, so they broke down and got abandoned at a frightening clip. So we held our own. But the Tiger still had a kill ratio of better than 10:1

  23. I urge everyone who is able to visit Ypres in Belgium and absorb the enormity of the first world war.

    1. Yes, indeed, Stephen. The Cloth Hall in central Ieper (they use the Flemish form of “Ypres”) serves as the local war museum and is well worth a visit.

      When I went there I was quite unaware of the town’s experience, and it’s a lovely medieval place, reminiscent of old Quebec City. The first thing you see in the museum is a scale model of the city as it stood on Armistice Day. It was a field of mud with some ruins sticking up. The city had been shelled completely flat over the course of the war, and the lovely ancient town you see today is a painstaking reconstruction done in the 1920’s.

      The city buses run out to Zonnebeke and there’s a road from there to St. Julian, where the Canadians were gassed at the Second battle of Ypres in 1915, running through part of the site of the battle of Passchendaele. It’s an easy walk, at least physically, and very beautiful. But the first time I set out up the road I wondered what all the white flowers were that filled all the fields. Only gradually did I realize that they were white crosses on war graves. As you go on you start to get overwhelmed by the vast number of the dead all around you. It’s a remarkable experience, and it drives home just what our soldiers went through in that war.

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