Editor:
Remembrance Day is today, and many of us are attending the various ceremonies around town.
Could you please remind your readers that this is a ceremony: it is not a hockey game; it is not a theatrical event. Therefore it is not necessary to applaud after the playing of the national anthem nor the Last Post.
Jim Armstrong, Surrey
• • •
Open letter to whomever organizes and hosts the Remembrance Day ceremony in White Rock.
Please remember last year’s errors in judgment and ensure that the ceremony is conducted as it should be: honouring those who fought and sacrificed in the wars of the past and the present. This includes not calling for the two minutes of silence five minutes early because “oh, it’s OK to just do it now since we all seem to be here,” or some such reasoning.
I know there were other mistakes made last year, and I urge the editor to dig up all the letters submitted in the days following in response to the issues we had and send them to the organizers, so that they have a “lessons learned” document to use in planning this year’s event.
Anne Friendly, White Rock
Once a year, we gather
They leave family at home
These women and men
Travelling to all four corners of this blue planet
Weapons of steel and wood
Cloth to bandage wounds
Some to conquer, others to bring peace
Uniforms to rags they suffer
They do what they have been told
They suffer for doing it
And too many died doing it
We honour them with a tear
We cry for our loss
Flowers to say we still remember
We buy poppies to support the survivors
The survivors among us we salute
We listen to the past and what they have to say
They walk with us
Once a year, we gather to remember these fallen souls
Let us honour the living
We pray that the number of fallen and wounded soldiers get fewer and fewer
Mike Stuyt, Surrey