2 Kings 23:29-30: 888,246 Ceramic Poppies

Presented on behalf of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #56 to the Community Remembrance Day 11 November 2014 in Swift Current, Saskatchewan by Captain Michael Ramsay

This is the original text. To view the 2016 Toronto version click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2016/11/2-kings-2329-30-888246-ceramic-poppies.html 

Today there are 888,246 ceramic poppies encircling the famous Tower of London; they create a powerful visual image to commemorate the centennial of the commencement of the First World War. The 888,246 poppies fill the Tower's moat. Each poppy represents a military fatality during the war. We Canadians fought as part of the empire; our family members and our countrymen lived, served, and died in the ‘Great War’, the ‘war to end all wars’, the First World War.

When World War One broke out Canada was a very small and sparsely populated country of just over 7 million people. Most were farmers or involved in other primary industries. Many boys and young men left their family farms here to serve in the war there. I have read stories of bankers and teachers and minors and scientists and athletes and farmers and very young men from across this country and Newfoundland who put their jobs, their careers, their parents, their girl friends, their new wives, their young children, and their whole lives on hold until they returned home from the war - only many never did return home from the war. They were never to be seen again by their wives, their children, their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers.

Almost 7% of the total population of our country - 619,000 Canadians served in this war and 66,976 Canadians never returned. That was almost 1% (0.92%) of our country's whole population: meaning that in a city the size Swift Current now, 170 people would have been killed in the war. If you lived in Canada then, you would know more than one person who did not return. I want to share one of the many stories I happened read about young people who left their homes here on the prairies to serve in the mud of Europe:

Stanley Richard Shore (Private, 27th Battalion, CEF) was born on December 16th, 1896. He received his education in part in the King Edward School, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was employed by the National Trust Company, Saskatoon, for a short period, but in order to complete his education he resigned and returned to school. In October 1915, at the age of 18, he entered the service of the Bank of British North America in Saskatoon. He enlisted in April 1916, as a Private in the 183rd Battalion, Canadian Infantry, and headed overseas. He then proceeded to France with a reinforcement draft for the 27th Battalion, Canadian Infantry. He was killed during the attack on Passchendaele Ridge on November 6th, 1917.[1]

He was only 20. He was a banker. He lived and worked in Saskatchewan and he was killed in the mud on Passchendaele Ridge. He is just one of the almost one percent of the population of Canada who never returned from his European service. Let us not forget.

Recently in our country a couple of young service people had their lives cut short. Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, who acted to save many in shooting the gunman on Parliament Hill, said “On behalf of all members of the House of Commons Security Services team, I would like to extend our deepest condolences to the family of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo. Our prayers are with you.  Our thoughts are also with Constable Son, who … suffered a gunshot wound to the leg.” I also heard reported that Kevin Vickers when asked about his shooting of the gunman, said, “All I could think of was his mother.” Let us remember her and let us remember Kevin Vickers and all that he is going through. Let us remember the service people and let us remember everyone affected there here today.

Today in the Scriptures we read about King Josiah. Josiah was the last great King of Judah. He was a good man, used by God to do good things and he was the last significant ruler of his country. Josiah, when he was 26 years old, this young leader marched out to battle and never returned. Josiah’s life was over. Josiah’s reign was over. Two chapters later, the two books of the Kings are over. And two chapters later the two Kingdoms of Israel and Judah’s are over.[2] Lest we forget the tragedies of war. Let us not forget.

Like Josiah, so many of our Canadian soldiers of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, left their families behind, left their work behind, left those who loved them behind. Let us not forget the many good people who marched out to battles from Canada all risking and some laying down their lives for God, for King and for country.

When World War 2 broke out, Canada was a country of 11 million people and we sent more than one million of our family members to serve in the military and of those more than 100,000 sustained casualties; 45,000 gave their lives. Many of us have friends and family who marched out of Saskatchewan here to offer their lives up in service to us. My grandmother’s brother who left the farm in Saskatchewan never did speak of the day they were surrounded by the Germans in the war. We who have not served in that way can’t possibly even imagine what he and others experienced on that day.

My grandfather returned home to Saskatchewan so that he could enlist to serve God, King and country in the Second World War.  I have these cards from my family members who served in both world wars. Theses are some of my treasured possessions. This one from April 2, 1917 says:

Dear Sister, Just a line to let you know that I am alive yet, and hope to continue the same. Tell Albert when he gets time to drop me a line. Bye, Bye, Love from Frank.

These are some of my cherished possessions. I look at these and I remember my family. I remember all those that risked their lives for us. I remember. I hope I never forget. I hope my daughters never forget. I hope we never forget. Let us not forget their sacrifices and let us not sacrifice the peace that they won for us. Let us not forsake them and let us not forget them.

It is said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Today, across the ocean, there are 888, 246 ceramic poppies to remind us of the terrible price of war. Today we are wearing poppies as a pledge that we will never forget our friends, our family, our loved ones, and our veterans who offered their lives in service to us. Let us not forsake them. Let us not forget. Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

Let us pray.

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[1] Norm Christie, For King and Empire: The Canadians at Passchendaele October to November 1917 (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: CEF Books, 1999), 36.

[2] Choon-Leon Seow, The First and Second Book of Kings, in NIB 9, ed. Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999): 287 points out that salvation is not meted out on a basis of works.