Did They Die in Vain?
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I walked on ‘hallowed’ ground. With every step I willingly drifted into the past and back into the present innumerable times. I walked alone toward the magnificent memorial at Vimy Ridge. I was overwhelmed by the simple marvel as it’s shadow flowed toward the shallow valley from which the Canadian soldiers attacked in 1917. The beauty faded as I looked at the names inscribed of the dead and also understanding that in that shallow valley there were over 30,000 remains of allied soldiers yet not exhumed. They are someone’s son, father, uncle, or brother.
 

H. G. Wells coined the phrase after WW1, ‘The war to end all wars’. Well that didn’t quite work out because between 1918 and 1939 more than 12,000,000 people died in conflicts of varying sizes around the world. So what did we learn or simply not get?  
 

It was my trip to the site of the D-Day landings, among other sites, that made my heart shatter and my knees shake. I purposely walked horizontal on the beaches knowing that I was intersecting 10’s of 1000’s of soldiers who ran under deadly enemy fire toward their objective. In my minds-eye I saw my footsteps in the proximity of many soldiers already dead and wounded.
 

I stopped at several allied cemeteries. Some names I read out loud in their honour. I saw ages as young as 16 years old. I had poppies with me that I solemnly laid while whispering a prayer. When was the last time a prayer was said for this person, I thought+?

Over 20,000 Canadians never came home.
 

What sadistic inhuman sons of Satan would make the sign entering Dachau read ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ a German phrase translated as ‘Work makes one free’?
 

Walking through Dachau pulled my soul right out of my body. The odor of death was there after all these decades. Humanity at its worst.

I reached out and touched the barbed wire knowing that in its day the wire was electrified and hundreds of captives threw themselves on it committing suicide. Did you know that there were over 30,000 assorted Nazi and their ally’s camps throughout Europe?
 

May 8, 2025 will be the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe, VE Day, however the two world wars only ended in their entirety with VJ Day (Victory over Japan) 80 years ago on September 2, 2025.
 

The end of those wars and the joy expressed around the world was beyond human description. The death calculator stopped having already counted over 41,000 daily casualties totalling 85M casualties within 2073 days. 55,000,000 were civilians.

If WW1 wasn’t was WW2 the ‘war to end all wars’?
 

Not at all. The world has endured at least 285 distinct conflicts to date nearing a death count of over 5,000,000.

To make it perfectly clear that as a Canadian Army Veteran, Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, and a member of the Polish Combatants’ (SPK) I will never abandon or avoid a veteran or an active soldier nor will I ever not attend a Remembrance Day Event. To me Remembrance Day is every day of the year.
 

But the question still remains; Did THEY die in vain?