34 Replies to “The Eleventh Hour”

  1. Remembering my Dad.

    He came home but he lost some friends over there. One, Andy, was lost right beside him only about 10 yards away.

    The greatest generation.

  2. I’ll be in front of the cenotaph today. It’s a wicked winter day out here in the buck brush but it’s got nothing on those who gave it all.

    I’m damn glad I’m a Canadian.

    ‘Hymn to Freedom’ Oscar Peterson

      1. It is a beautiful tune Kenji and NR picked one of the best versions.

        I saw Oscar a number of times and visited his grave which is in a little cemetery in Missassagua.

        Oliver Jones came through Alberta a number of years ago. He did 2 nights in a club, one in Edmonton and the next night in Calgary. I went to both.

      1. Thanks for the link, Nancy. Wonderful piece. I remember catching him at the Park Plaza in Toronto when in my late teens, complete with fake ID. Exceptional talent.

  3. “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
    ― John Stuart Mill

    We shall remember them.

  5. Freedom isn’t free, it comes at a cost.
    Thanks to these folks we are still free!
    Thank you all, we shall remember!

  6. I LOVE the poppy symbol. My son was in England during the poppy celebration and saw the massive displays which were stunning. In addition, the FA (England’s Football Association) has poppies on players uniforms, coaches lapels, and throughout stadiums to memorialize our fallen soldiers. Sadly, FIFA (the world football association) has repeatedly called for an END to the practice … suggesting that it “glorifies War” or some such nonsense.

    So let’s recap, shall we. FIFA approves and sanctions players kneeling and raising clenched fists in support of BLM … but demands and end to Poppy displays. Seems FIFA has some strong leftist (and Muslim) bias.

    1. I have seen next to nobody wearing a poppy this year. Granted the poppy boxes are few and far between, but I think generally people don’t care.

  8. Both world wars were started by Britain interfering in European affairs. The Franco/Prussan war (started by France) didn’t interest Britain and was thus kept localized. The same would have happened with the the Russian/German/French war in 1914 and the Polish/German war in 1939 but for British meddling.

    1. Right we should have just sat back and left Hitler to his own devices. I obviously only wanted some room. (That’s heavy sarcasm just in case anyone is stupid enough to not get it.) You do know Hitler had U boats sailing upon the St Lawrence right to Montreal?

      1. I remember my mother telling me of her small town in newfoundland waiting out the night with a uboat parked in the one of the harbours

        1. I’ve written books (WWI and II) plus stories so know abt the uboats in the harbours of Nfld and Que. I don’t know abt Nfld but understand they were welcomed in the Gaspe as they had Cdn money to spend.
          The first man from my area (Leeds and Pittsburgh Tps) was on an armoured yacht that was sunk in heavy fog travelling from Que. City to Sidney, N.S., with no survivors, of course. Within 4 days submarines claimed HMCS CHARLOTTETOWN and eight merchant vessels.
          The last sailor to lose his life connected to my hometown thru marriage was on HMCS ESQUIMALT, sunk after Germany had lost the war by a sub crew that had been hiding along the Gaspe coast waiting out the war. They used a torpedo that would have taken out a battleship let alone a little minesweeper. One of the German submariners emigrated to Can. and was invited as a guest by a naval org at Kg to be guest speaker at a Canada Day banquet – and you don’t know what I said to him and the organizers in a letter to the ed. (His son was a mbr of the RCMP and in attendance.) Hope he didn’t sell one copy of his book.
          Whoever thinks that Hitler’s Third Reich didn’t include North America is naive.

      2. If Britain hadn’t declared war over Poland, Canada would have stayed out if it. Poland was sitting on a large chunk of East Prussia, and would’t grant road and rail access. Show me where we had a dog in this fight.

  9. Cold and clear and sunny here at the worksite.

    I called the supervisor at 11:59 to ask if we were stopping for a minute of silence. He agreed and and asked everyone working on site on both radio channels.

    All the “Canadian” guys stopped for at least 2 minutes.

    All the “browns” driving the trucks never stopped, got out of their trucks and did maintenance and kept driving.

    I’m not impressed with the “foreigners” who don’t want or need to assimilate.

    But we are told by the MSM what valuable Canadians they are.

    Prove it!!!

  11. God Bless the men and ladies for their service! Thinking of My Grandfather who fought at Vimy ! And Ernest and Tommy in the Second World War!

  12. Flanders Fields the way poetry should be read, not chopped up into stanzas:

    “In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place;

    And in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe: to you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.”

    Given current events – sobering lessons lost so destined to be relearned.
    Can our generation answer and defeat the existential scourge of despotism as did our descendants, at great cost?
    How is survival possible when fascists seem to dominate our entire government and what ‘s left of civil society?
    The foe is us, our complacency. I fear we will realize too late that we are holding the torch by the wrong end.

    1. Not to worry! The assembling Biden Administration will get America back on a WAR footing. The Pentagon is salivating at all the white, Anglo-Saxon despots they can start bombing. You know Poland is high on their list … and will make a nice staging country for their assault on Russia! Why Russia ? Because Putin REFUSES to capitulate to the LGBTQqFU … so he MUST be made an example to America’s protection of the most Queer among us.

      Go Biden!

      We are so tired of PAX Trumpicana … Right?

      1. Yes that’s what I mean, so I agree.

        Progressivism, including neo-cons, RINOs and other co-opted surrender monkeys leads to bigger and more intrusive government, leading to more taxation and regulation, leading to inflation compounded by crowding out and loss of productivity, leading to war, any war, to divert attention and further inflate away their debt while increasing control.

        Americans have allegedly elected an administration that seeks not to lead, that would involved consultation, thought and fairness, but the rule by their whims, desires and personal interests. I’ll say it again voters do it to themselves.

  13. I was looking at the photos that I have of my backyard this morning and the one that caught my eye on this Remembrance Day was a photo of the red poppies in a flower bed. They were in full bloom and blowing ever so slightly in the wind and tilting to the right. The grey sky in the background had a blue patch. Just below that was a makeshift birdbath and to the right of that is a wreath that I have hanging on a metal hook suspended with an invisible fishing line. It lookslike it’s floating in midair – like magic. The wreath is made out of brown twigs and I might add the wreath is not exactly round but it is heart shaped.

    At that moment I thought of a dying soldier who needed water before his death. The heart represented his love and loved ones, the blue sky represented his ascension into the hereafter. The grey sky represented all of us who mourn the dead soldier. The beautiful swaying red poppies represent their sacrifice for our freedom. May we never forget.

    Any of the soldiers that I met who lived through WWII would never talk about their time overseas. That included my father and neighbours. They wanted to forget it. When I asked Mum about it she only said that it was “awful.” I was surrounded by people who wouldn’t talk about it. Man did they like to party it up, though. Most were weekend alcoholics.

    Yes, may we never forget!

  14. Went to local cenotaph with my 8 year old son and told him why it was important we do so in person – rather than mail it in as the government wants.

    RCMP (bastards) guarding the site to ensure no one ventured too close – perimiter was set up far far away from cenotaph.

    Typically its well attended – but maybe 1/20th of normal today.

    No reason for closing this to the public this other than to put the boot harder on our backs, and show us how easily they can.

    One more nail in our coffin that the public is happy to help pound in.

    1. I went to the cenotaph today in town as well. Less than a dozen of us there. Nasty wind and snow.

      I’m not normally given to sentimentalism but November 11 gives me a lump in my throat. We are so lucky

  15. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them.

  16. a C130 Hercules flew overhead right when the last post was playing just before the clock hit 1100 hours.

    I got a lump in my throat.

    I wish I had been born at the right time to do my part to dish it out.

    but I will settle for being a grateful peace loving hippie.

  17. My grandfather’s older brother did two tours over Europe. Mainly because his two brothers had children and as long as he stayed neither would have to go; my grandfather had done his basic training so he would have been called up.
    Anyway, the entire Halifax/Lancaster crew of Canadians – included one American and one Brit – made the double tour intact. He was the bombardier of the crew. They were given their discharge from further tours shortly after D-Day. We have a copy of their tour records along with two group photographs. The second one was taken after they returned on their final run.

  18. Closest I came to military service was being an Air Cadet – but I did get to fly in a Herc. One of those memories you never forget.

    I spent a bit of time reading the collected letters sent home from my Uncle Peter while serving in England, before dying as bombardier, in a Lancaster, near Chamounesy, France in 1944. The amazing thing is the loyalty and ‘ownership’ demonstrated by families of the village who to this day, tend and repair the graves and tributes to the brave crew of that airship. Recently, they sent my sister a flag that flies above the set of four Canadian graves, as they were replacing the flag, which they regularly do. The photo they included showed a 12 yr. old boy and his father, carefully folding the flag they were about to send.

    They don’t forget and neither should we.

  19. No world wars took place prior to England amassing the largest empire in human history, by violent land grabs.
    Both world wars happened after England had become Empire.
    No world wars happened after England lost its empire.

    The dots are there. Whether you connect them or not is your prerogative.

    1. No world wars took place prior to German unification and Germany trying to amassing an empire, by violent land grabs.
      Both world wars happened after Germany had become a unified country.
      No world wars happened after Germany was defeated in two world wars.

      The dots are there. Whether you connect the ones that show the picture you prefer people to see, or not, is your prerogative.

      No world wars took place prior to the 20th Century.
      Both world wars happened in the 20th Century.
      No world wars have happened after the 20th Century.

      The dots are there. Whether you connect the ones that show the picture you prefer people to see, or not, is your prerogative.

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