Keeping Remembrance Day in My Own Way….

Gap’s ‘Remembrance Day deal’ not appropriate, Toronto veteran says

‘The point is not to exploit and profit from this day,’ says Cpl. Chuck Krangle

CBC News Posted: Nov 10, 2014 11:10 PM ET Last Updated: Nov 11, 2014 10:57 AM ET

  Have to agree with  Cpl. Krangle, it is beyond inappropriate to  exploit Memorial Day with  yet another phony holiday ‘sale’ and shows no respect for  our veterans, living and dead..

Then again, no ‘sale’ on  any public holiday advertised as such is  truly appropriate..but  you hear little  if any criticism of it..Still the media is happy to headline such a critique during a sensitive time in Canadian history, when we are still feeling the sting of the recent murders of  Canadians on home soil by  people who should have been treated for mental disorders, but were instead free to acquire  arms and  act on their  own hallucinations…

By centering attention on the  stores, all part of the  capitalist system that CBC gratefully buys into every five minutes on their TV network, it is easy to forget why  these  men had to die, and the reasons  get lost in the noise and pontifications from  our  elected leaders..

Why is their such a reduced amount of gun control in this country?

Why are those in dire need of  mental health doctors and facilities ignored, put back out on the streets and left to  fend for themselves?  Let us not forget that one of these sick men begged for incarceration, and told authorities he would be repeating his acts of violence if not stopped..he was not stopped.

Why is the fact that a murdered soldier involved in the hospitalization and rehab of  veterans and soldiers is not given the same attention as one guarding a monument? Could it be that  this sort of publicity would draw voters’ attention to the fact that the Harper  government has underfunded every program to rehabilitate  vets?

On Remembrance Day,  and please remember I am a Canadian citizen by choice, and always am cognizant of how happy that makes me,  I  think of my Russian-born Jewish grandfather,  whose family escaped the pogroms of his village  and  came to the US, a handsome young  doughboy  in uniform in a formal portrait, who lived a long and good life, unlike many of his comrades..

I think of my Brooklyn, NY-born  father, who lied about his age (15) to enlist and fight in WW2 and joined the SeaBees,  a Navy Construction Battalion, because he was colorblind and could not be  given a combat role, and the horrors of Guadalcanal and  the surrounding areas that he had to deal with..my mother told me he used to wake up screaming during the early years  of their married life….

I think about all the teenage boys  that I went to school with  who were forced into  the Vietnam War, and those  who came back alive were often  damaged in ways that were not necessarily visible to the eye…often as  drug addicts who  had  the shadowed hollow eyes of  desperation.

This year, of course, I’ll be thinking about the  men who died so needlessly in this  war  of Harper’s making…not  because of his decision to get involved, yet again, in the countries far away that are not a concern of ours except as  our  old role of peacekeepers would dictate, but  the men who died here because of  his policies  of scorched earth when it comes to social justice or helping those who cannot help themselves…

    Perhaps Cpl.  Krangle will find  my musings inappropriate, but  to paraphrase Scrooge, “Let me honor  Remembrance Day in my own way..”