By Michael Nickerson
Ok class, please take a seat. You’ll see that there are padded recliners for everyone this year, as we had a few complaints about the leather sofas provided in the past. Not very comfortable was the general gist, and I know our vegan students didn’t much appreciate sitting on animal skin. Well I can assure you we don’t want that! Comfort is key! So sit back, relax, choose your massage setting, and when everyone is ready we’ll proceed with our Remembrance Day festivities. And in the interest of keeping things light we’re dispensing with the actual ceremony and all that war unpleasantness. Instead, please enjoy these puppy videos!
I don’t know about you, but when I was a wee lad that wasn’t the way our Remembrance Days were observed. For one thing there was no YouTube, so finding films of puppies was a bit of a chore. But more importantly, they were rather somber, reverential affairs lead each year by our school janitor, a World War II naval veteran who served on a Royal Canadian Navy MTB in the North Sea. He made sure that the school staff took the day very seriously, and the day became our first exposure to the concept of armed conflict and the best and worst of humanity. Not the most comfortable of experiences that, and nary a puppy in sight.
Fast forward to today and it seems school Remembrance Day ceremonies have moved away from a sobering reflection of war, sacrifice and loss to an exercise in not offending the sensibilities of anyone involved. At least that was initially the plan for the kids of Sackville Heights Elementary. You see, concerned over possibly upsetting some students that have come from conflict zones, the school made a rather cheeky request for veterans to attend, but only wearing civilian clothes. In an email to families, their school principal explained that they wanted to ensure that everyone involved would feel “comfortable” and some had expressed “discomfort with images of war which includes those of individuals in military uniforms."
Now I’m all for concern about the feelings and fears of others to the point that I might finally get a tattoo reading “woke” in big bold letters…though somewhere I can also conceal it should it make anyone uneasy (damn this woke stuff gets complicated!). But there are times when things are so serious that trying to be accommodating to everyone turns the whole thing into a pointless farce. Learning about the cost of armed conflict in all its bloody reality is not the time for a congenial meet and greet with tea, cookies and a round of Tiddlywinks.
This very fleeting policy was born out of the best of intentions, and rest assured the school’s staff has been thoroughly pilloried in public for being nice if rather ignorant. But the whole episode I think was rather telling about what Remembrance Day means today. Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Zach Churchill opined that the day is for “celebrating” our veterans, as if it’s some sort of festive holiday. Lost in all this back and forth is what many would argue is the purpose of Remembrance Day: recognizing the shear insanity that is war. As Robert Huish, associate professor of international development studies at Dalhousie University, opined to CTV News, the day is an opportunity to educate students on not just “a simple history that explains the dates and times of conflicts, but the real meaning about how war changes a society.”
These discussions need to be had, and from an early age. The simple fact is armed conflict occurs when we as a society screw up. It’s then that we turn to our militaries to deal with the mess we have made, sometimes with their lives. It’s a brutal, uncomfortable subject, one we seem to avoid to the point that a large portion of our society doesn’t understand the sacrifice we ask of our military, nor the relentless effort needed to avoid them having to make that sacrifice.
We’ve put comfort over responsibility. And the subject of war should never be comfortable. Only when you get uncomfortable talking about it do you know you’re on the right track.