I have been thinking over the past week, how could I ever write about my feelings about remembrance day. I could tell you about my grandfather, who fought in the First World War, and my uncles who fought in World War II and the Korean Wars. Or I could tell you about a much loved family friend who was a doctor in World War II. However, I decided, that really, nothing I could say, hasn’t already been said before. So, I decided to hand over today’s blog to my friend, and hometown hero Lt. Navy Jason Pickering. Jason and I went to elementary school and high school together. We shared a common bond, because both of our fathers were OPP officers. Now, Jason, and our friend Captain Kevin Howe (originally of Port Rowan) has been added to my list of people on Remembrance Day to think about. So I am warning you, get a tissue ready, because this entry made me tear up. It is raw, candid and beautifully written.

Entry from Lt. Navy Jason Pickering

It is my pleasure to take the lead for CD 98.9 as it pertains to Remembrance Day this year.

Honestly, in previous years the day has always been more nostalgic and held meaning for me from a family history perspective and less from a professional experience one. I am prone to daydreams in this case, and often during the last post, prayers, and even the reciting of “in Flanders Field” I found myself thinking about a man I never knew, in a situation that I could barely fathom.

My grandfather, Bill Pickering, served in HMCS Trillium during WWII. He was Coxswain (senior non-commissioned member) of the Flower Class Corvette for several years as it made a record 57 crossings of the Atlantic without ever taking damage. When I became a navy sailor myself 55 years later and had toured the HMCS Sackville, a sister ship of the Trillium, I used my own at sea experience and over laid it on his journal entries that I have read over and over again to develop a sense of what he had experienced during those frightening times. Anyone who has ever toured a warship of that vintage, or better yet, seen the Sackville in person will attest that conditions at the time were quite poor, and no one could say that a life at sea, especially during the Battle of the Atlantic was not very dangerous and most times a miserable existence. So that being said I always knew that no matter how hard I tried to imagine the conditions I would always come up short. I suppose in some way the lack of ability to empathize with veterans was a cause for disappointment in myself, as a military member and as a Canadian. Those feelings were further exacerbated by the realization that over the last 4 years men and women of the CF had been dying in a war in foreign lands, again a situation I could never imagine myself in with any real conviction. The old saying of “you had to be there” is true in my case, and I hope that those feelings are similar throughout a large number of Canadians today. By that I mean that although Canadians “support the troops”, wear poppies, and pray and give thanks for the sacrifices of soldiers past and present, that they also feel a bit of humbleness and thankfulness to all who have served so that Canadians may live in the relative comfort and peacefulness they do today.

Those were the feelings that Remembrance Day evoked in years past. Last year I must admit was significantly overshadowed with feelings of doubt and uncertainty as my deployment to Joint Task Force Afghanistan had been announced a few weeks prior. As the names of those killed in the recent battles were read, my mind was inundated with thoughts directed towards my own family and how difficult it would be for them to deal with my death overseas, a sentiment I had never really fully considered a reality. So that was last year. Where do I stand after a 7 month deployment to Kandahar this year and what emotions will it stir up? I can only speculate.

I fully expect to get significantly choked up through the entire ceremony. Many people may have heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I can tell you, that until you have known someone with it then it is only a myth. I know friends with it, and I am currently suffering with a bit of it myself. In fact most people who have been deployed operationally show symptoms in one form or another and in most cases those symptoms dissipate relatively rapidly on return to home units. In the case of myself, I have been home for 3 months and I and just now able to withstand the agony of crowds, to keep my anger in check, and to sleep a full night without waking up and listening for rockets.

When I visit my cenotaph this year with my friends and colleagues, dressed in our best blues I know that I will think back to the 24 men in caskets that were slow marched past me on the tarmac in Kandahar Airfield. I will remember the heat even though it is likely to be freezing cold out in Sackville at 11 am Sunday. I will remember saluting till my arm was ready to fall off as the flag-draped boxes moved slowly by, and willing my muscles to stop shaking and the sweat in my eyes o stop stinging out of respect for the fellows in those coffins and the sacrifice they and their families had made. I will choke up remembering when I first watched a news story about the Highway of Heros and how thousands of people lined the overpasses between Trenton and Toronto to show their support to the dead. Even now, as I write this I well up and imagine the immense sorrow that those brave soldiers families must have endured and think about my family and how those mixed emotions of pride and grief would be manifested. I know that I will be drawn into daydreams of destroyed vehicles that I documented, after action reports and lessons learned reports that I read, and how real it becomes when you see the aftermath close up and personal.

I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. I came home after 7 months overseas, having only exited the wire and safety of thousands of soldiers only once for three days. I was never confronted by Taliban. I was never shot at, bombed, or targeted save for the semi-regular rocketing of the camp (a tactic that by its very nature is incredibly inaccurate). What I do want to convey is that I have come as close to understanding the sacrifice that soldiers make as I may ever come. I understand the tension of stepping outside the safety of the camp where the enemy can get you. I understand what it means to see young men you know go home in boxes. Most importantly I have a better understanding of what I do, and why I need to do it.

To close this out, I would like to thank all the veterans of wars and deployments that have come before. I do not wish for them to feel that I am saying “I understand” and “I have been there”, I have not. What I would like them to know is that I am thankful, and I have a very fleeting sense of what they have endured in service to their country. As far as those who have died in defence of their country both on foreign lands and at home I will thank them in my own way on Remembrance Day as I shed a tear and salute them for laying down what is so precious to them for people they have never met.

Little Thoughts:
Share with us, who you will be remembering on Sunday.

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