How well we remember them

In May 1985 Goward Heath attended a Navy Reunion where he read this to remember fallen comrades. Mr. Heath is now a 93-year-old War Veteran, in June 1946 he joined the Great War Veteran Association (GWVA) and is an active member in the Royal Canadian Legion.



Let us for a moment examine this excerpt from a poem,

They shall grow, not old as we that are left to grow old.

The young men and women who died in war will be forever in our memories, as young men and women in the prime or mostly before the prime of life.

War is selective in its victims, it wants only physically fit, mentally alert men and women of high courage and principal as sacrifices.

When we mourn the loss of these comrades of ours, we mourn for them and us too, because our country is the poor for their loss.

Who knows but the men or women who could lead our country out of todays apathy and confusion is numbered among the thousands who fell fighting for freedom.

Not for them the battle of thinning hair and the thickening waistlines, nor will they have to answer for mistakes made and opportunities wasted. But also for them there is no family life, no joys of parenthood, no life of leisure. They live in pain and in fear before they even had a chance to live.

How will we remember them?

Ideally we should remember our war dead with actions, as well as thoughts; with humility and compassion; and above all with the determination that their sacrifices be not wasted.

They shall grow not old.