Remembrance Day 2020
This is too beautiful for me not to copy and paste. I did not ask the permission since it’s published on a public forum, and well, I’m fairly sure that he wants to be heard. Feel free to find him on reddit and give this guy a virtual hug. There, the letter:
"This is probably the most painful thing I have attempted to put into words in a very, very long time. The politicians, "health" care officials, and panic-mongers who have decided to play God with our lives have literally dishonoured and debased everything meaningful and dear to us. For them, no shameful act is too base; no imposition too far, no hypocrisy out of bounds.
They took Nov 11th from me.
I sat at home today, alone. Before 2020, I have physically attended a November 11th ceremony every year, for over 30 years. Because our masters decided only they had the right to attend the ceremonies - so they could mug for the cameras and pontificate about sacrifices that they neither understand, comprehend, nor respect.
I was reduced to watching this day, so heavy with pain and meaning for me, on TV, like a shut-in, alone with my tears - thinking of those I know who were lost in Afghanistan, those who have taken their own lives because of the ghosts that haunt them, those who have died before their time due to the burdens military service placed on them. I cried for my father, who died at this time of year, and we buried (as he wanted) in his Reserve uniform.
God, how I cried today - both for the memory of past life events this day triggers for me, and for the shame I feel in watching us cravenly cower behind masks for a farrago, while we remember those who risked their lives to fire, bullet, shell, and shrapnel.
I watched the mayor of a city - a fat, sated little worm in a too-tight, expensive suit, stand before veterans and dare to make a comparison between "wearing a little bit of fabric" - the red poppy - and the wearing of "the little bit of fabric" (a mask) over one's face. And to talk about putting away "selfishness". He wasn't speaking about veterans, or freedom; he was perverting the meaning of this day for his own political ends.
The gorge rose in my throat as he said those words!
I am so ashamed. I beg the forgiveness of those who have gone before us. We are not worthy of their sacrifices
I still cannot believe that the power that be can 1) removes our freedom 2) laughs at us while wearing the poppy. All kinds of weird insanity.
JP