Today hundreds of Canadian young people will be at Vimy Ridge in France to commemorate the 95th anniversary of that historic battle. That battle occurred on Easter Monday, a direct correspondence with this year. World War I was marked by horrendous carnage in the battles and Vimy was no exception. We are saddened by the deaths of roughly 150 Canadians in Afghanistan. There were 3600 deaths at Vimy alone and thousands more were injured.
My trip to Vimy was a 25-year-old and stunned me. I have written before that I visited the memorial the same year as my 22-year-old brother. We admitted to each other that we shed tears at the memorial with inscribed names of the dead and cemeteries with row on row of graves for men who were younger than we were at the time of their deaths.
Jesus said that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend. I am grateful for the sacrifices of nearly a century ago, but war is one of the great idiocies of the human race.
Have any of you been to Vimy? Do you know anyone there this year? What are your thoughts about this sort of commemoration?
As time moves all of us further and further away from these crucial times in our history, it's really encouraging to know that our young people are still aware of the significance. of these events.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize until this week that one of our members, a highschool principal, was at Vimy with a group of these teens. Great opportunity.
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