Remembrance Day... Thoughts By Rev Thomas Sabourin

From the CHP e-mail communique. (Photo from the Blazing Cat Fur blog.)

It's November and I assume that just about every school in North America is engaged in learning of the Remembrance Day activities. The children are learning the age old poem 'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae or is it Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae?

General Eisenhower Warned Us (excerpt from unknown writers)

It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

"Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some ------- (person of illegitimate birth) will get up and say that this never happened."

The UK (today) debating whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED'?

This Remembrance Day, let's Give Honour where honour is due!

It's the Military, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the Press. It's the Military, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of Speech. It's the Military, not the politicians that ensures our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It's the Military who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag.

This week on the evening CTV News Cast it was reported that Steven Marshall, a Sapper from Alberta was the 133rd Canadian soldier who has fallen by the enemy's hand in Afghanistan. From one Sapper to another I salute you and say thank you for paying the ultimate price for the cause of freedom.

Major John McCrae in his powerful poem charges us:

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.'

As our young Canadians who are involved with the 2010 Olympic Games are carrying the flames across the country - let us remember that there are Canadian Soldiers that are still paying the ultimate price carrying 'The Torch' of our ancestors across the World...to proclaim freedom... if you see or meet a veteran or someone in uniform this week, just go up to him/her shake their hand and say thank you... God Bless You.

Lest We Forget!