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Letter: Who is a veteran and who is not?

Are the feelings behind Remembrance Day not valid two days before?
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Remembrance Day in Maple Ridge on Saturday. (THE NEWS/files)

Editor, The News:

On Remembrance Day, I laid a wreath at the cenotaph. I talked to a ‘vet’ and I read an article that left me saddened and ashamed.

The ‘vet’ was a homeless man, wearing a red poppy, who spoke quietly about his time in Vietnam, where he cried at night until he began to take heroin, bringing the resulting addiction home with him.

Saturday, Nov. 11, the good citizens of Maple Ridge ‘honour’ vets like him. Or do they?

A few days or weeks before (according to a couple of newspaper articles I read), homeless people like this vet were being evicted from what little space they could call their own, a small tent in the homeless camp.

Then I read that the organization, which we all recognize as most prominent in honouring vets, seemed more concerned about money and trademarks and corporate identity than in the welfare of vets with mental health challenges, and that saddened and sickened me.

I noticed, too, that two wreaths, thoughtfully laid with feeling at the base of the cenotaph two days before, had been removed before the official ceremony Saturday morning. Are some wreaths more important and deserving than others? Are the emotions and feelings of some people who wish to lay wreaths more deserving of respect than others?

We teach our children crafts and the value of the homemade, but is it that only official wreaths laid on one day are acceptable?

Are the feelings behind Remembrance Day not valid two days before?

When is a veteran not a vet? Who is one? Who are we honouring? For what? Does a vet cease to be a vet when he or she becomes addicted? When he or she becomes homeless? When he or she suffers from PTSD?

Is a father who died protecting his sons from the callous laughter and drone bombardment of an invading modern army worthy of honour? Is he a veteran of a war? What about the dead children? Are they veterans of a war?

What about the woman who unofficially organized a village to resist the invasion of a foreign armed force, a death squad terrorizing those who objected to having their well water polluted by a mining company?

Are these not the same sort of rights we talk about the vets protecting for us?

What about the trade unionist who died trying to stop those who were enslaving men in mines and shrimp boats? Is he a veteran of a war?

What about the refugees who are driven out of their homes by foreign invading armies who bomb indiscriminately. Are they not veterans of our wars?

What kind of society have we become? What kind of town are we?

Do we pay lip service to the idea of courage one day a year?

Is it only about a sanitized version of courage we honour?

Is it all about respectable, official vets who won’t tarnish a corporate identity or a trademark and who won’t jeopardize a money making venture?

More importantly, perhaps, when each of us stands in front of the cenotaph should we be asking ourselves what does Lest We Forget mean? Does it truly mean never again, or just until the next time?

Pat Gibbs

Maple Ridge