This morning I watched the re-dedication of the Vimy Ridge Memorial. For any Canadian who does not know about Vimy Ridge and it's part of WW I and part of our Canadian history you really should aquaint yourself with it. When it comes to war we usually know more about WWII then #1; due to movies like "Band of Brothers", "Saving Private Ryan", or even video games; but WWI isn't talked about. WWI was a gruesome war; 1/3 of Canada's 60,000 dead have no known resting spot. Many of these soldiers were literally blown to pieces or burried in tunnel and trench explosions. The soldiers life was in a muddy trench filled with filth, rats, and death. And their escape from that was to run across a treacherous field with mines, barb wire, explosions, and machine gun fire trying to kill them. The one thing that blows me away about the World Wars is that it literally robbed generations. You think of the young men you know and realize that thousands of these young guys never grew up; they never built homes and businesses in their home towns; many parents childless. And they weren't accomplished men who went to war, but they were teenagers, young men who had their whole lives ahead of them. One year this hit home when I was a youth pastor, and in my youthgroup I had a core of 12 teenage guys 15-17; I realized that were it WW1 or 2 that 8-10 of those boys would have gone to war and over half of them would not return.
We live in a great country that was built on the courage, valour, and dignity of many young men who fought hard for this country. I can't imagine this current generation answering the call the same.
