Why Wear It?

Last year around this time, I was struck by something I saw on campus. Or rather, something I didn’t see.

Poppies.

In a student body numbering well over fifteen hundred, there weren’t a dozen poppies. Why was this?

Initially, I thought the cultural diversity of the college might account for it. After all, Remembrance Day isn’t observed everywhere—just the British Commonwealth, much of Europe, Australia, the US and Canada. It’s not called Remembrance Day in all of those places, but the intention is the same.

Then I heard one student comment to another that “those poppies glorify war”.
Another student looked at the poppy in my lapel and said:“Y’know, I gotta get one of those.” It was November 10th or so. We talked a bit about this and eventually he said something like:
“Well, I’d probably wear one if I knew someone who’d been hurt or killed in a war or something”.

Portraits of people missing the point.

First, poppies don’t glorify war. They commemorate it. They are a tacit recognition that whether you support any, some, or no wars, we owe a blood debt to the dead. The hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have died in so many distant places are worm food, while the sons and daughters of those who survived or stayed home carry on in single-minded pursuit of the two-car garage and RRSP’s.

Second, you don’t have to know a veteran, or have lost a family member to wear a poppy. The dead soldiers didn’t know you, did they? Most of them were dead and buried before you were born. But they knew the kind of people you wanted a chance to be. And whether you approve of their wars or not, they fought them.
Men and women about our age were asked to go and risk everything they would ever be—their individual hopes, dreams, and aspirations—so that we could freely pursue ours. Respect that sacrifice.

Maybe that’s not enough to get you to wear a poppy. Maybe you need reasons closer to your self. I can’t give you those. I can only give you mine.

This year I wore my poppy for my great-grandfathers and grandfathers, all of whom served in at least one Great War. And for my great-uncle Tom, who served in England and Canada before being shot down over Holland(His picture is on the page). And my Dad’s cousin Clifford, who as long as I knew him was bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis partly caused by two torpedoings during his service in the Merchant Marine.

For my friend and messmate Seekumar "CJ" Singh, who died of an aneurysm in his favourite chair while waiting for his wife and kids to get home.
For Chris "Gooch" Larouche, who, after twenty years of service, put on his medals and took a handful of sleeping pills in an Ottawa hospital.
For Frank, who got his medal forty years after Korea.
For Mark Isfeld, a military engineer killed in a Bosnian minefield.

Those are the ones I knew personally. Few of them died as a direct result of war. Fewer still died on a battlefield. And maybe that’s because we are reminded every year of the alternative.

There are others:
For Marc Leger, Ainsworth Dyer, Richard Green and Nathan Smith; and for Majors Harry Schmidt and William Umbach, who have to take their deaths to bed with them each night.

For Robbie Berenfenger and Robert Short.

For those still serving in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

And for those in places like Darfur and Cote D'Ivoire, for whom no-one will fight.

Do you need any more reasons?