Remembrance Day*/ Veterans Day

It's Remembrance Day tomorrow. Or Veterans Day here I guess. It's strange for me that there are no poppies here, to me they have such significance that it's awkward for me to not have one on my jacket. Although it's not jacket weather anyhow. So I wonder how do you acknowledge tomorrow respectfully? Happy Remembrance Day? It's not a particularly happy day, but it's an important day. It bothers me that so many people don't care and that so many work places disregard it. I know some people that get to choose, boxing day or today. They choose boxing day. Hmmm now that's some kind of bizarre pagan belief! Sheesh. Anyhow kidding aside I think today is important... it should be observed. I quit a job once because it wasn't.... (imagine the fuzziness setting in for a flash back...)
It's 2003, I'm working at a large telecommunications company in their warehouse and hating every minute of it. I don't like the company then and I still don't now. I don't know if I would get into trouble for saying their name. Think big Canadian company rhymes with melus.
So Remembrance Day was coming and I asked if we were going to get the day off and I was told "no". They (melus) believes that since they are so multicultural and not all cultures observe R-Day that they wouldn't give it off, instead opting to give multicultural day off. WOW!!! I was livid. I spoke to my direct supervisor and I told I thought that was crap, he agreed (he was a great guy!) but Melus is huge and there isn't much we could say. So I quit right before the day. My reasoning. I think that Canada is great. I am exceedingly proud to be Canadian and I love that people from other cultures want to come and live here, and I want them to. I think part of what makes Canada so great is the mix of cultures that we have. BUT there is a reason that Canada is such a wonderful country first. Someone worked hard for it to be wonderful. By someone I mean the peacekeepers. My grandpa was in WW2 and contributed to Canada's inevitable staus of a desirable country. We need to HONOUR him and the other peacekeepers, present and past. It's great that we can have a multicultural day to celebrate, but we need to remember why we have the ability to be multicultural, and what makes us desirable to perpetuate our multicultural-ness. For this reason we should observe Remembrance Day, and for this reason I will observe a moment of silence tomorrow at 11am, I hope you do too.


*this is a post from an old blog I have, I have changed it and edited it some, but this is something I believe strongly in, and I think it bears repeating.