With the celebration of Canada’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, all the recognition of the battle at Vimy Ridge, and remembrance day right around the corner, I have been reminiscing about my own trip to Europe to Canadian battle sights in the world wars, with the Queen's York Rangers 2799 Army Cadet Corps during the Spring Break of 2017. I didn’t go because I had relatives who fought and died in the war, I was not born a Canadian, as a matter of fact I immigrated to Canada when I was two years old. I didn’t go because my friends were going, or because my parents told me it was a good opportunity, or even because I love my Country’s history. I went because it was my way of remembering those who died so that i can live.
I am part of the …show more content…
I remember walking onto the site, and passing the marker that shows the area that France gave to Canada for the memorial. How could I forget joking around with my friends as we jumped back and forth between Canada and France, and the feeling of being back in Canada, yet still being miles away from my family. Then there was the memorial, the size and dramatic impact of the memorial is impossible to put into words. It is emotional moving to see this tower from a great distance and know that it is there in remembrance of those who gave so much for you. When I finally got to the monument I saw the names of dead soldiers carved into the sides of the monument go on, there was no end to the names. I thought of each one as a person with parents, loved ones, friends, and children who would never see them again. I thought of how their death were so inhumane and how I never wanted anyone to go through something like that ever again. Before we left all of us gathered around the front of the monument and laid a wreath to remember those who did so much for our freedom. We had a few readings, and had two minutes of …show more content…
I recall walking through cemetery after cemetery trying to read as many names on the tombstones as I could. It seemed wrong to only take pictures and look at a couple. I will never forget reading may familiar names, my friends last names, and thinking what it would have been like if those were my friends that were buried there, the mear thought gave me shivers. However that was nothing compared to the German cemetery I visited, Langemark German War Cemetery. The germans were not even given their own grave, the allied forces grabbed a bunch of dead germans and buried them all together. Each tomb stone has at least six names on them. I was horrified when I saw this! But that was not the worst part, even worse is that in the middle of the cemetery is a huge stone tablet surrounded by four statues and a bunch of stone tablets with names covering all of them. At first sight I thought that it was so beautiful, but I was mortified when I discovered that this was just a mass burial site of thousands of unidentified dead Germans being discovered in the fields. It made me wonder how people could be so cruel, these Germans may have been fighting for the enemy but they were humans, just like