[EnderD_503]

For me, Remembrance Day is particularly about World War I and World War II, and those who sacrificed their lives in those particular wars, many because they had no choice. I view the circumstances of those wars as very different from those that have come since, and in many respects I see that as the point of Remembrance Day. Too many young soldiers getting caught up in the ideological/political causes of those who have nothing to lose by playing other people like their own personal pawns. The fact that many soldiers even today are forced into serving due to poor economic and social situations is something we need to start addressing more. Since WWI and WWII it has never since been about "defending" one's own nation, or "defending" much of anything, but about pressing a certain political will on other nations.

As such, I also choose to use today as not only a day of remembrance of Canadian soldiers who died in those two brutal wars, but also as a day of remembering the needless victims of the Western world. This is something that I've only really seen Germany do: acknowledging and honouring its own victims. I think the rest of the West should follow in their steps and use Remembrance Day as a way of reminding ourselves of the horrors of war, and how needless many of the wars going on today are...how the lessons we should have learned is that these could have been avoided, and so many lives spared.

"Lest we forget." I think in many ways we have forgotten.