Silence and Remembering

Remembering was different when I was growing up in Toronto in the 1950s. The Second World War was still a recent memory. The military was present in all aspects of my life. I had a father, six uncles and two grandfathers who had served in one of the two world wars. Portraits in uniform were on the walls. Lugers and badges were in the drawers. My father emerged from 12 months in the hospital, broken and angry, his leg shattered.

The more my father and his war buddies Buff and Elmer and Jimmy, for whom I was named, drank, the more heated the stories grew. They had to rely on one another. Their families were sick of hearing about it. They were trying to find their place. I wasn't tired of hearing about it. I was afraid of my father, but I was proud of what he did. Sadly, I remember him sitting up late, alone when his friends left, playing that melancholic tune "Lili Marlen" on his harmonica.

I never had the chance to ask my father about his experiences. It is remarkable how few chances we really have. I have in recent years read his war record with the Lake Superior Regiment, but it is not the same. He died young, of alcoholism, abandoned. That serious injury that he incurred in Holland pretty much ruined his life and his family's.

Many vets came back and made successes of their lives, made use of their experiences, took the hardship into their character. My grandfather was like that, but not my father. He had experienced his great adventure (and from letters in his record his great love) at the age of 19 or 20 (shocking to me now) and his life never recovered. He tried to maintain the camaraderie but one by one his war buddies disappeared and he was left to drink alone in the Legion.

There are so many reasons for us as a society to collect and to nurture the memories of those who served us and the common good. We can better understand that the whole legacy is not just that of heroism. My father would say that everyone was afraid and was brave and that it was the army who decided to choose the "heroes." He reserved the most respect for the faces he saw staring back at the barrel of his gun.

So the more history we preserve, the deeper and more nuanced our understanding.

Our schools in those days were also tinged with war and memories of war. Oakwood Collegiate had an auditorium that could hold all the students and the most solemn gathering of the year was November 11. With our principal, numerous teachers and even our guidance councilor ex-officers, the whole school had a militaristic air. The boys were forced to don cadet uniforms, to shoot rifles in the school shooting range (imagine!) and to parade--I once fainted and broke my nose in the fall at the Armoury.

It all made me a bit of an objector. In fact I created a cause by refusing to wear the uniform again. But all that changed when we heard that wonderful poem "In Flander's Fields," heard taps and then stood there in silence. The whole experience was deepened one year when our history teacher Mr Coutts read us the famous depiction of the Battle of Solferino that led to the formation of the Red Cross. More history.

Today we are so far removed from at least the two major conflicts. Our veterans are dying and for our own organization we are scrambling to listen to them before they go.

So in this twittering world, silence is even more precious, the still point as T.S. Eliot called it "Where past and future are gathered."

James H. Marsh has been editor in chief of The Canadian Encyclopedia since 1980.