Remembrance Day

As November 11th approaches again, I am again faced with the same internal conflict. The problem is that I know I am going to have to run across that disturbing poem In Flanders Fields again. I have no idea why Canadians find it’s jingoistic, pro-war message so compelling – I can only assume that most have never read the whole thing, as it is often just the one stanza about poppies that is quoted. I am equally appalled by the often repeated idea, regularly heard around Remembrance Day, that the battle of Vimy Ridge was somehow a glorious victory for Canada. On the contrary, it seems to me that it was a pointless slaughter, and thousands of Canadian families lost loved ones for a cause that was unworthy of their sacrifice. Machine guns and barbed wire were two horrific weapons that had been invented decades before 1914, but the fat, smug, cigar-smoking generals and politicians were too myopic to see what their implications were for modern warfare, and were happy to embark on an exciting new war filled with, they assumed, cavalry charges and glory. Instead, what they sent their millions of young men into was a slaughterhouse of mud and trenches.
For anyone who wishes to read a real war poem, one which punches hard in telling it’s tale of courage, horror and camaraderie, I recommend Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est. Owen, who served in WW1 and died fighting in it, paints a savage picture, and it is a poem that I cannot read aloud without choking up.
And here we come to the source of my internal conflict. Can we question the cause that veterans fought for, as I have just done with the First World War, without disrespecting and dishonouring the memory of those brave young men? I sincerely hope so, because I think we should always question and question again the cause we are sending our young men and women into harm’s way for. They deserve nothing less. I am grateful that Canada declined to participate in George W’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 – had we done so we would today be mourning god knows how many more Canadian youth on Remembrance Day. And for what?
Our Second World War veterans sacrificed so much...so many gave their very lives, but the cause was noble and worthwhile. They were not just fighting and dying for their country, they were fighting to save civilization itself, to put an end to a monstrous evil. Families who lost loved ones could at least take some comfort in that.
For Remembrance Day I offer a poem you likely haven’t heard before. It was written by an ex-Bomber Command aircrew named Roy Collins, who served with 90 Squadron in WW2. The poem is included in a wonderful book of Bomber Command poetry entitled These Are But Words. Mr. Collins’ poem is titled Never Go Back, They Say. It is painfully poignant, honest and it doesn’t glorify war.


Never Go Back, They Say


I went back to the old field
At the close of an Autumn day.
To find the tower crumbling,
The hangars filled with hay.


The dead leaves swirled and eddied
And crunched beneath my feet.
This concrete base, complete with plough,
Was once the gunner’s hut.


What could it be, what was it
That I had come to find?
Traces of my vanished youth,
or was it peace of mind?
The shadows darkened, lengthened,
As I slowly strolled around,
Stood and looked and listened
As they crept along the ground.


And then I heard – or did I?
A faintly mocking laugh,
The tinkle of a spanner,
The chuckle of a WAAF.


The muted sound of Merlins,
throttles eased by ghostly hands,
Screech of tyres on tarmac,
The lost coming in to land.


For here were ghosts in plenty,
Young ghosts of yesteryear,
But I am young no longer
And am not wanted here.


I went back to the old field
At the close of an Autumn day.
I wish to god I’d listened,
And I had stayed away.