Remembering War

Bille Jo Gardner visited Wynyard this summer and did a little digging around history. She spoke of the Wynyard area’s Gunnery school North of Dafoe in a long letter that she wrote for the Wynyard Advance. I wrote the following for publishing the week of November 11th. It was not published and perhaps with references to local people meant that it should not have been published. I do not have the same inhibitions.

When I first saw the RCAF #5 Bombing and Gunnery school, there were buildings and a firing range still standing. At that time it looked remarkably similar to the air force training sites near Dauphin, Manitoba, one of which was within a mile of the farm upon which I spent my youth. The pilots flew their circles over the pasture and back to “touch and go”.

An ancestor of ours lost two of her sons to WWII – and her first husband to WWI. In the 1950's, our family “celebrated” Armistice Day seriously – we really believed that WWII was the end of war and that the United Nations ushered in a new era, one in which nations spoke to one another and resolved their differences. We believed that weapons would be hammered into plowshares.

The only winners had been the arms manufacturers, the wealthy, not the farmers, the women, or the children. There was comfort in believing that those sons and husbands did not die in vain - and that  they were the last Canadians to be sent to kill or be killed.

When I moved to Wynyard in 1980 as a physician, I inherited a number of WWII veterans. Some of them had stellar careers in the military and some were ordinary guys who survived. Two were suffering from PTSD – the long term version of “shell shock”.  When I asked one of these about his role during the war, he said, “they shouldn’t make us do that”; he suffered from formless nightmares. The really sad thing was that the nightmares continued even though Alzheimer’s meant he could no longer remember why he had them! The other gentleman was obsessed with various minor ailments, all of which he related to experiences during the war. I dutifully completed endless forms which we sent to Veterans’ Affairs, all to be denied. None of the people from WWII received debriefing – they were just sent home, having served their time, discarded veterans.

A friend of ours wrote about his father:  "Some of my earliest memories are of him pulling weights from pulleys attached to the ceiling in his recovery from polio. I also remember asking my mother why dad "yelled during the night". She told me not to worry about that "it's from the war" she said. That "yelling" continued until he died at the age of 83."

A friend of a soldier said, "H... and I were best friends in school. He was full of devilry and loads of fun. When he came back from the war he was a changed man. I never knew him after that and we never got close again".

In 2012, I attended Remembrance ceremonies in Ottawa at the same war memorial at which Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was standing when he was shot in 2014. I felt my ancestors – and the souls of those who fought in WWII - turning in their graves. The 45 minute service did not mention peace once.

As we approach another November 11^th, let us honour those who died, value those who survived and re-gird our determination that they not have died in vain. We must encourage our government to build civil society instead of bomb infrastructure.

Grandma was right. Grown men and women should not be resorting to guns to solve their differences.

Remember D-Day: It is Russia and US this time

And learn from our past. Could the terrible loss of life and environmental destruction that was World War II been prevented? If we don‘t learn from our past, we are bound to repeat our mistakes; honouring the battle of D-Day and the men who lost their lives should include  answering the question, “how could it have been prevented?”

My aunt lost two sons in the war; she spent almost a decade in mourning. She spoke resentfully of people who got rich during the war while she lost her children. 

So as the US and Russia face off over the Ukraine, what could we learn from World War II?

When someone, a leader or a country says that it wants world domination or implies that it is somehow “above the law”, they mean it! Hitler said it. Now the US says it. 

US exceptionalism was recognized as fact in the eighteenth century; unfortunately the more recent US leadership have mistaken exceptionalism for superiority. Paul Bolt, on taking his position as US representative to the UN said (and I paraphrase) that there wasn’t really a United Nations, the world was governed by one super-power and everyone else had to go along. In fact, the failure to understand the nature of US exceptionalism has lead to universal blindness about the invasions and bombings of more than seven different countries in the last century, the building of military bases in more than 25 countries, the surrounding of China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula – and acceptance of US hegemony at the security counsel. Finally, the United States does believe that it is above the law; it does not accept the existence of the International Criminal Court.

The US wealthy need to keep having wars. They even support the use of drones so the sales of arms will continue but US citizens don’t actually have to get killed. Obama has made threats to Iran, Syria and now Russia – none of which have threatened the US. So the US is on a war path.

Why do we (the rest of the world) stand silent?

1. Denial:  We can’t believe that the world would go to war. Chamberlain so wanted to believe Hitler that he called the “Munich Agreement” of 1938 which “gave” Czechoslovakia to Hitler, a “Peace agreement”.

We can’t believe that there would be unscrupulous people in the arms industry who would lobby for war for their own profit – of course, that’s not what they say.  They say that the war is for “education for the woman”, saving “babies from being thrown out of their incubators” or “to establish democracy”.

We can’t believe that the sales of arms is ethical; we can’t conceive that people have no responsibility for arming terrorists, underground militia, or despotic governments – or for the people killed by the arms from which they profited.

2. Personal Gain: This played a role in the delay with which the US entered WWII. It plays a role among nations currently allied with the US; disagreeing with the US might mean imposition of some new sanctions, some passport hassle or trade issue. Additionally, of course, other countries may have arms industries equally eager to see a war break out. Canada could become very wealthy if a major war occurred in Eastern Europe.

3. Bad-mouthing the US: No one wants to be labeled as “anti-American” partly because the term “American” is equally applicable to Mexicans, Central and South Americans and partly because mostly we like the citizens of the United States even as their government doesn’t represent them on the world stage.

Even so, the United States is behaving like a big bully; it must accept the same rules as everyone else. Why is it in the Ukraine in the first place? Why is it leading the inflammatory remarks towards Russia? Become civilized and behaviour as civilized adults and start negotiating a peace process.

The fact that Russia and the United States both have nuclear weapons means that no one will be left unaffected if war occurs - we cannot afford to just watch the process - we need to be vocal. 

Hope in our Hearts

What a wonderful day in Regina!

It was quite an effort to arrange - revising the chicken coop to make it impenetrable from the outside for four-legged carnivores and from the inside from scratching imprisoned chickens, picking the corn, zucchinis and cucumbers to take to the city, organizing our travel bags with "things to return or drop off", recreational items like yoga mat and bathing suit (just in case the opportunity arises)  and the shopping list (like good fairtrade coffee, woman's work gloves, a special spatula, etc. - we always look in Wynyard first).

We successfully dropped off everything - book to Jan, toilet seat to Shayna and garden goodies in the evening.  We managed to get most of the essentials - didn't get to David's Tea or to visit the museum; I did yoga in the Balkwall park but Bill didn't get a swim.

We participated in the short march from City Hall to Victoria Park in opposition to military action in Syria, made some new friends and met some old friends, carried a sign (If I can learn how to post pictures to my blog, I'll show you.) heard some good speakers (who knew how to make a point briefly), and was interviewed by some excellent young journalists.

Part of my Spiel at the interviews:  In the 1960's we in the peace movement thought that we had more or less "won the war" against war - Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement was founded on principles of non-violence and they had prevailed over legislative racism.  In the 1980's we thought that we had turned the tide and the world would disarm itself of nuclear weapons - and eventually all weapons - this was not a utopian dream, it is the view of the founding nation-states of the United Nations, it was the view of the United States in the late 1920's when, tired of death and destruction, it passed a motion not to engage in wars of aggression anywhere!  It is not utopian, in fact, it is the only way the world will survive.

Military action to "punish" the use of a banned weapon is so exquisitely childish but action is needed.  The manufacturers of banned weapons must be identified.  The flow of arms into the conflict areas must stop and negotiations must begin. Do it now or do it after more infrastructure is destroyed?  May as well show the maturity to do it now.

We capped off the evening at the Briarpatch 40th Anniversary Party.  We  were delighted and proud to discover that our daughter, Beth, was the MC although we knew that she was the event organizer.  An incredible amount of volunteer time must have gone into the historic slide show!  The audience was engaged throughout.  And the audience!  What a wonderful mix of people of all ages and backgrounds!  Again, we renewed old friendships, and met many whose paths we will pass again!  The energy in that room will "change the world - it is the only thing that every has"!

When we pulled into the yard, the chickens had all put themselves to bed safely and the dog was pleased to be let out to mark his territory, have a barking fit and check for invaders.

We slept a satisfying sleep.