Print 
PDF
Remembrance Day. Veterans Day in a USA. My relatives were concerned in a Second World War, father as a motorist for a brigadier, mom as a policewoman-fire warden. They were married in a family rite in an English church, my father in uniform, a integrate of years before a fight ended. Oh yeah – they were English. (So many wars since, so many opposite sides.) We immigrated to Canada in 1951.
Usually during this time of year I’m during a NAR Conference in a USA though since it’s in Anaheim and I’m not a Disney fanatic, we chose not to attend. I’ll skip a opposite viewpoint a Americans have on Veterans Day compared to Canada. It’s not a state holiday – solely for inhabitant events, it’s a work day for most. Secondly, if we are wearing a poppy, you’re possibly a U.S. politician or a Canadian.
It’s bizarre a pitch of a poppy is so Canadian. Americans – those south of a 49th and north of a Rio Grande (after all, we’re American too) – are a many nationalistic adults we know. Perhaps a bit too discerning to praise, appreciate or censure God, though during a dump of a silver toss in a NFL, there’s a colour celebration of U.S. Marines followed by a fly past of a Blue Angels while everybody stands with hands over heart. In baseball, usually to uncover it is America’s game, they start with a Star Spangled Banner and then, in a seventh inning stretch, sing God Bless America or America a Beautiful. More mount ups than during Comedy Central.
In Canada, we’re calm to sing along with a stream inhabitant anthem. (Remember when it was God Save a Queen?) At a Vancouver Canucks home games we’re so polite, a anthem thespian shares a midst carol of O Canada with a crowd. Have we ever been asked to lead a organisation in a singing of O Canada? If we wish to strike apprehension in a hearts of any audience, ask one of them to lead a singing. They’d rather contend a prayer. Getting someone to contend beauty is easier than to strike that initial note of O Canada! The cold thing is a rest of a throng is so beholden they weren’t asked, they’ll jump into a ravel with unrestrained once led.
Then there’s a fear of forgetful a difference – one thing to sing along, another to lead. How many “far and wides” are there? Do we “stand on guard” twice or 3 times? What’s that bit in a center about “sons” or is it “suns”? Why “true north” – doesn’t everybody know it’s a captivating north that’s in Canada? There’s a second verse? And because do adults of a USA sing My Country ‘Tis of Thee to a same balance as God Save a Queen? And who rhymed “tis of thee” with “liberty”?
Patriotism is a mystery. Why do we get choked adult when one of a athletes climbs a lectern in a unfamiliar land to explain a bullion medal? What moves us, beside respect, to mount silently in good numbers as a misadventure of a Afghan fight is repatriated? Why do we wear with honour a dwindle pin? What moves a mothers to send us abroad usually after she has sewn a Canadian dwindle prominently on a shawl or coupler or duffel bag? In a sea of inhabitant flags, because do we find a own?
I served with a Royal Canadian Navy Reserve, rising to a dizzying arrange of major after 3 years as a cadet with a University Naval Training Division (UNTD). They were a best summers of my training life, spent in Cornwallis, N.S., Halifax and Hamilton, with postings to 3 frigates (four-inch guns, 40mm Bofors and abyss charges — yahoo!) and lots of mucking about in tiny boats – embankment vessels, YMTs and YFPs, and whalers (not a Boston kind, a strange Herman Melville!)
If we wish your children’s nationalism reinforced, cruise a troops cadet programs – we occur to foster a comparison use though we consider we was unduly shabby by boyhood readings of The Cruel Sea and Horatio Hornblower. Those books were introduced by a sea cadet module during RCSCC Admiral De Wolf. (De Wolf was a autocratic officer of Canada’s many famous warship, HMCS Haida, a genealogical category destroyer enshrined as a inhabitant ancestral site in Hamilton Harbour.) The cadet programs for army, navy and atmosphere force are smashing opportunities for immature people, training lifelong skills and ensuing in improved – in my opinion – career choices. Mastering a low-pitched instrument, piloting a glider, racing sailboats, presence training, navigation, not to discuss a opportunities for transport opposite Canada and a universe are impression building. Many who enter a cadet programs are supposed into modernized preparation programs by troops college.
And by a way, we consider a Chief of Defence Staff got a tender understanding for his use of a Challenger jet. Here is a man, a latest of an superb organisation of group to fill a role, whose compensate is around $225,000 according to a final Google info we could access. He is obliged for 90,000 group and women, many of whom are in harms approach daily. He interrupts his family holiday to honour Canadians killed in Afghanistan and we covet his use of a supervision aircraft to reunite him with his family. Seriously?
Meanwhile David Hahn is using a B.C. Ferry swift of some 35 ships and several thousand crew and his annual grant will be scarcely double a CDS’s annual salary. And as indignant as some folks get during Mr. Hahn, he frequency has to wear physique armour or have armed protection.
Remembrance Day – lest we forget.
You can find Marty Douglas on Twitter – 41yrsrealestate – Facebook and LinkedIn. He is a handling attorney for Coast Realty Group, with offices on Vancouver Island, a Discovery and Gulf Islands and a Sunshine Coast of B.C. Marty is a past chair of a Real Estate Errors and Omissions Corporation of B.C., a Real Estate Council of B.C. , a B.C. Real Estate Association and a Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. mdouglas@coastrealty.com
Article source: http://www.remonline.com/home/?p=10385
