Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Highway of Heroes

I have often wondered why in recent years, the US government has found it necessary to not allow public viewing of our dead coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan. Some trumped up excuse about consideration for loved ones, blah, blah, blah. Dying in the service of my country makes me a loved one also. Shrouding their return to this country behind flimsy excuses does nothing to honor their sacrifice. We know they are dead, we should have the right to honor their return. As unpopular as the War is, some kind of public display seems the right thing to do.

I am absolutely floored by what ordinary Canadians do for it's fallen soldiers. The War is unpopular up there also, but at least the government allows the citizenry the right to honor the dead by announcing their return. People by the thousands line Highway 401 and stand silent as the procession takes the dead from the airport to the morgue. What a nice gesture for the loved ones who have just lost a son, a daughter, a friend. In my opinion, Canada does it right. We could take a lesson from them. We could take quite a few lessons from our friends up north I guess.

5 comments:

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Thanks for posting this.

I've linked to your blog here.

Randal Graves said...

I cannot fathom that ever happening here. No matter what arena it is, war, politics, sex, drugs, we approach these issues not as adults but as children. When there's combat, people die. To hide the dark side of anything behind some screen for our 'protection' is about as un-American a thing as there is.

Anonymous said...

http://www.terry-kelly.com/pittance/pittance_en.htm

look at the video links at the top for the song

susan said...

I was born in England right after WWII and raised in Canada. It's still known as Armistice Day there and since the occasion falls close to my father's birthday, I was generally there for the memorial events. What became more noticeable over the years was the ageing of the veterans. While the US continued to wage wars and various military actions, the Canadians consolidated their smaller military branches and the old soldiers just got older. Every year there were fewer of them and everyone seemed to understand the sacrifices made to keep the world safe all those years ago. Although Canada does get involved in NATO and UN peace keeping missions they neither start wars nor try to police the planet.

So really it's like comparing apples and oranges or comparing Denmark to the USSR in the 60's. There are definitely better ways to go and going back to being encouraged to show respect would be a big step.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

It's still known as Armistice Day there

Well if you're talking about Canada, Susan, everyone I know calls it Remembrance Day now. Not that it matters.

But our efforts in Afghanistan have really helped make everyone more aware of the sacrifices that all Canadian and American soldiers have made over the years; and of course those of our allies and U.N. partners.