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Writer’s thoughts on wearing the Remembrance Day poppy

As long as I’m able I will wear a poppy and make my presence known on Nov. 11. However, I always will have my reservations

Editor, The Times:

I am a great fan of Robert Fisk, the great correspondent and historian whose 1,000 page essays are informative and easy reads.

Robert Fisk won’t wear a red poppy on Nov. 11. He has his reasons I’m sure.

However, I do wear a poppy plus I attend every Nov. 11 ceremony. In Powell River I also brought my twin daughters plus one or two of their friends along.

However, I do from time to time feel conflicted, especially when I hear John McRae’s “In Flanders Fields, Pick up the torch, etc.!

The First World War (here I quote Phillip Knightley’s “The First Casualty”) “... was like no other war before or since. It began with a promise of splendor and glory. It ended as a genocidal conflict on an unparalleled scale.”

Perhaps this is why McRae crumpled “In Flanders Fields” and threw it into the garbage can. Less “Pick up the torch” and more compromise and understanding should have been the order of the day.

They died so that we could enjoy our freedoms. Well, yes! And no!

While Canadian soldiers were off to Hong Kong and Dieppe and other more successful ventures to meet a truly dreadful foe (the Germans in many ways had become what they weren’t in WWI - the Horrible Hun!), a great injustice was being done in this country to those of Japanese ancestry.

In the hysteria after Pearl Harbor, here and in the U.S. the Japanese were rounded up to be placed in internment camps.

This was not only a terrible injustice but also a horribly stupid decision. There were literally thousands of young Nisei (those born in Canada) ready and willing to join the Canadian army. (The Nisei had already done so in WWI.)

The Americans did somewhat better in this respect. The 442nd U.S. Nisei Division was one of the most if not the most decorated units in the U.S. Army!

(I have been told that the largest single group to volunteer for Canada in WWII was the Aboriginal-Métis people but that’s another story for another time.)

Despite the cries of woe and doom when the Canadian military accepted gays and women in combat roles the Canadian army in Afghanistan has performed up and above the call of duty (as usual). What the end result will be is something to be judged in the future.

As long as I’m able I will wear a poppy and make my presence known on Nov. 11.

However, I always will have my reservations.

After all there is the wise saying, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Dennis Peacock

Clearwater, B.C.