Presented on behalf of the Royal
Canadian Legion Branch #56 to the Community Remembrance Day 11 November 2014 in
Swift Current, Saskatchewan and to Warehouse Mission and Corps 614 Regent Park, Toronto on 13 November 2016 by Captain Michael Ramsay
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This
is the Toronto version, to view the original click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2014/11/2-kings-2329-30-lest-we-forget.html
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On this day in
2014 there were 888 246 ceramic poppies encircling the famous Tower of London
in England; they create a powerful visual image to commemorate the centennial
of the commencement of the First World War. The 888 246 poppies filled 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.
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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 and businesses 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 girlfriends, 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.
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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 and it was almost 1-out-of-every-5 boys aged 16-24: meaning that in
a community the size of Regent Park (Cabbage Town) now, 150 (120) 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. On River Street alone in the few blocks
where 614 is today from just past Dundas to Queen St., seven young men gave
their lives – and many more on the side streets here too. In the very short
walk down Parliament St. from the Warehouse Mission to the food bank, were the
homes of five more young men who gave their lives. I want to share one of the
many stories I happened read about young people who left their homes here in our
city to serve in the mud of Europe:
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Allan
McLean “Scotty” Davidson was one of Canada’s early hockey heroes. As captain of
the Kingston Frontenacs, he led the team to the Ontario Hockey Association’s
junior title in 1909 and 1911. During the 1912-1913 season he joined the
National Hockey Association, playing for the Toronto Blueshirts, scoring
nineteen goals in twenty games. The following year, as team captain, he led the
Blueshirts to Toronto’s first-ever Stanley Cup title.
Lance Corporal Davidson was the first professional
hockey player to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force in September 1914
serving with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (Eastern Ontario Regiment). He
was 24 years old when he died in France on 16 June 1915 and is one of over 11 000
Canadians whose remains were never found or positively identified. He was only
24. He lived and worked in our city and he was killed in the mud in France. He
is just one of the almost 20% of Canadian young men aged 16-24 who never
returned from his European service. Let us not forget.[1]
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We remember just
before Remembrance Day in this country a couple of years ago too: a couple of
young service people had their lives cut short in Ottawa. Sergeant-at-Arms
Kevin Vickers, who along with Curtis Barrett and others, acted to save many in confronting
a 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 the gunman, said, “All I could think of was his
mother.” Let us remember her and let us remember Kevin Vickers, and let us
remember Curtis Barrett (the one who delivered the fatal shot that saved many)
and all that he is going through. He has suffered serious PTSD since the event.
Let us remember all our service people and let us remember everyone affected
there here today.
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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 are over.[2] They
are destroyed. Lest we forget the tragedies of war. Let us not forget.
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Like Josiah, so
many of our Canadian soldiers of the 20th and 21st 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.
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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 Toronto here to offer their lives up in service
to us. I met one such man at Kiwanis last week.
My own grandmother’s brother who left the family farm to serve overseas 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.
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My grandfather returned
home to Canada from California where he was working when war broke out so that
he could serve God, King and country in the Second World War.
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I have these
cards from my family members who served in both world wars. These are some of
my treasured possessions. This one from April 2, 1917 says:
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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.
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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 never 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
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Our
bothers and sisters, our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, our
comrades-in-arms who are veterans all lived and some died so that we would not
have to live through the horrors of war. I have been a legion chaplain for many
years and was honoured to hear their remembrances as clear as if they were
yesterday: What they lived through. They lived and their friends died so that
we wouldn`t have to live and die in war. Many cry when they see how cheaply we
treat the peace that they bought us at such a high price. They lived and died fighting
for an end to war. When we refuse the peace they died for, I have been told we
devalue their life; we make their sacrifice mean less. Jesus Christ himself
died so that we could be reconciled to God and each other. He rose again so
that we could serve Him, the Prince of Peace, whose government will never stop
ruling and whose followers will never stop being peaceful. And that is my hope
for each of us here today – that we would, honour the sacrifices of our
veterans as well as our Lord and Saviour by living in peace with one another.
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It is said that
those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Two years ago today, across
the ocean, there were 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.
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Let us pray.
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[1] COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION – Canadian Agency http://www.cwgc-canadianagency.ca/a128/Canadian+War+Dead+from+the+Sporting+World.pdf
[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.
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