the north grenville
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TIMES
Vol. 1, No. 49
The Voice of North Grenville
Nov 6, 2013
What do we remember?
Special Remembrance Day Issue
SIGMA
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Passchendale - Picture by Walter Tuck. Supplied by the North Grenville Historical Society by David Shanahan This is the time of year when we are encouraged to remember. Here at the Times we wanted to do something special to mark Remembrance Day, and I hope we have succeeded in that. We have put time and effort into the special pages in this issue, with the help of generous sponsors. It was important to us to avoid simply
going through the motions, repeating whatever has been done before, out of respect to both the living and the dead. But preparing for this special edition raised unexpected questions, questions which I believe go to the core of what it is we do every November 11. The most common phrase that is used is “Lest We Forget”: but over the years and so many events, do we remember
what it is we must not forget? You see, it is so easy to be overwhelmed by statistics and names: Vimy, Dieppe, Passchendaele, Amiens, Juno Beach, Ortona, the Battle of the Atlantic, Kapyong, Kandahar. The numbers are staggering: in the First World War, between military and civilian casualties, through battles and disease, more than 16.5 million people died. That is more than twice
the population of Canada at the time. Canada lost more than 67,000. The Second World War was the bloodiest in history: in all, somewhere between 60 and 85 million people died in just six years. Of these, 45,400 were Canadians. The numbers are huge, and don’t even include casualties in Korea, Afghanistan, South Africa, and so many continued on page 2
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