They’re disappearing

Canada’s firsthand witnesses to one of the greatest conflicts that shaped the world are slowly passing away. Our remaining veterans of the Second World War and the Korean War are down to just above 4,000. Every year, that number gets smaller. Every year, fewer people remain who can tell us, in their own words, what it cost.

One man’s voice

Bill Wilson was one of them. The Manitoba-born sailor served aboard HMCS Ottawa and took part in the D-Day landings. He died this year at 101. Looking back on that day, he didn’t hesitate:

“I think D-Day was the best day of the war for the world. We did free all of Europe, and Canada was there. For a little nation like ours, it still amazes me. Would I do it again? In spades.

What they never got

Generations of young men never came home. They never fell in love, started families or had the chance to grow old.

From Vimy Ridge to Juno Beach to Kandahar, our history is one of service and sacrifice.

It wasn’t just Canadians who felt this

One of Scotland’s last surviving D-Day veterans, who died this year at 100, put it plainly:

“I’ve had another 82 years. I came home, fell in love, got married, had children, and watched my family grow. Thousands of young men never had the opportunity to experience any of those things, and that is tragic.”

He continued: “I will never forget the men who didn’t come home. All I ask is that, when we are no longer here to tell you ourselves, you don’t forget them either.”

We’re forgetting

Fewer and fewer people take the small amount of time each year to wear a poppy in recognition of that sacrifice. It’s become a worrying trend.

Another reason remembrance is losing its personal connection is that fewer people have a veteran or someone who served in a conflict in their lives. The further we get from the firsthand experience of war and its cost, the easier it becomes for remembrance to feel like an obligation rather than something that genuinely moves us.

Why it’s happening

Alongside the decline in poppy-wearing, there’s a deeper problem: younger generations simply don’t know enough about their own history.

It isn’t helped by the fact that most students take only one mandatory history course before graduating high school. History is important, but it has to be reinforced every year, with practical examples, not left to a single class.

Remembrance Day ceremonies need to be meaningful opportunities for students to understand our history and honour those who served, not just another obligation to sit through.

Our turn

Now it’s our turn to hold the torch high.

John McCrae captured it in In Flanders Fields: the dead speak to us still — short days ago, they lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. Now they ask only that we remember.

Lest we forget.