It is, with total
, that I respond to articles written about the ceremonies in Vancouver. Page 4 - a photograph of young Sea Cadets attending the Vancouver City ceremonies at Victory Square. At least 2,000 people were there??? Then I move to page A18, and a wonderful photo of a young Navy League Cadet in Regina, where 8,000 attended......and I refer to another page where hundreds of thousands attended at the War Memorial in Ottawa. Someone was quoted as saying locally - Remembrance Day has become current again. Sad to say, I wonder where all the hundreds of thousands of Vancouver citizens were on November 11. Probably holed up in their front rooms watching NFL football. My dear father passed away on November 12, 1976. He was a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner with the RAF on a Whitley bomber from 1939 to 1941. He crash- landed three times in two weeks and was given the rest of the war off. He was so hurt from those crashes, he couldn't speak for over a year. He was one of the lucky ones.
Many of his crew carried on and never did survive the war.
I will never question our adopted country's decision to go over to Afghanistan and seek peace for it's peoples. I leave that to those who know better. But I do question those who believe 2,000 attending a Remembrance Day ceremony in Canada's third largest city is adequate in honouring those who died or were maimed for life in trying to give us peace in our world.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
John Sykes
Abbotsford, B.C.
