I rarely share my thoughts on Remembrance Day. Why? Because everyone has a story, and many have endured more than I could imagine. It always felt like my own reflections were secondary to the immense sacrifice of others.
But each year, one memory keeps calling me to speak. It’s a story that shattered my understanding of what “coming home” truly means.
The Reunion That Turned to Terror
It was a homecoming at Trenton Airport. A unit was returning, and families were finally reuniting with their soldiers at the terminal. There were emotional, tear-filled hugs everywhere.
My friend had arranged to meet his wife and 5-year-old daughter just outside, on the grass. When his little girl spotted her dad, she broke away from her Mom and ran across the expanse of green toward him.
What happened next was certainly not the reunion anyone expected.
The dad started screaming and swearing at his daughter to stop and get back. The joy of the moment instantly dissolved into shock and trauma for both father and child.
You have to understand: this father had spent months soldiering in a place full of IEDs, mines, and booby traps. Since those devices are hard to hide on pavement and sidewalks, the enemy placed them in the grass and foliage. A grassy expanse was, to him, something to be instantly, violently feared.
He was reacting instinctively to save his daughter, just as she was reacting to seeing her dad for the first time in over six months.
The Unseen Casualties of War
For many years, Remembrance Day was a day to remember those who died serving our country—about dress uniforms, marching, and drinking with comrades, as it focused on the visible sacrifice.
In recent years, it has come to mean something starkly different to me. I can’t help but think of the thousands of soldiers who returned from war with life-altering, debilitating wounds, both seen and unseen.
I think of those who came home in a box, but also those who came home irreparably changed.
I think of veterans suffering from depression and full-blown PTSD—diseases just as deadly as any sniper. These are the struggles that lead to failed relationships, tangled finances, and legal problems. These are the issues that leave us with homeless veterans and young men and women struggling to fit into a civilian workplace where, for their colleagues, the most significant crisis is often the wrong flavour of coffee.
These soldiers are most certainly casualties of war, yet their names are not mentioned on memorial walls or honoured in any fashion. I am saddened to think of what those lost, ruined, and wasted lives might have accomplished.
This is what Remembrance Day is about now: The deep, permanent cost of service.
Remembering the Innocents
Finally, I think of the innocents—those caught in a fight that is not of their making: the women, older adults, and children who become casualties and are often subjected to the cruelty of the evilest acts perpetrated by the worst individuals on earth.
I think of my friend and his daughter. I think of the moment a loving father saw a deadly threat in a patch of grass.
This year, when you take a moment to reflect, please remember the tremendous human cost of service: the soldiers who are still fighting, the families who are still suffering, and the unseen battlegrounds they carry with them every day.