Eighty years later, The Line remembers

We thank our veterans, living and dead, for their sacrifice, their courage, and, most of all, their example.

Editor’s note: The Line is travelling this week, with both editors on the way to Edmonton for tonight’s event! We have a few tickets left, and hope you can join us this evening. Click here to find out how to hang out with G&G!

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The Line does not make a habit of referencing every date of commemoration or every anniversary. There are too many. But today is the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, and we wanted to say just a few words.

There is little that we can add to what has already been said about the courage of the Allied soldiers who hit the beaches and dropped from the skies to begin the liberation of France and western Europe. Their bravery is more than we could ever capture here, what they endured beyond our imagination, and we will not try to do the impossible. We will say this, though: the 80th anniversary of that tremendous feat of arms is a reminder of just how far into the past D-Day has somehow become.

The Line remembers, with love and fondness, those members of our own families that served in the Second World War. We remember the Remembrance Day assemblies when we were kids, when veterans would come in to share stories and memories of and lessons from the Second World War. They seemed ancient then, but we do the math in our heads now and realize — huh — those men (and a few women) were probably just easing into their retirement years when they sat there and addressed us.

And there were so many of them! It was easy to talk to a Second World War veteran in your family, or find one to speak at your Remembrance Day event, or to mark D-Day or VE Day, or to interview for a school project. Few are left today. A million Canadians served in the Second World War, out of a population of only 11 million, and by last fall, the number left alive had dropped below 10,000. (Even that number is something of an overcount, as Veterans Affairs includes Korean War veterans, who are slightly younger, in the same category). Those that are left are frail, near the end of their days. 

It seems incredible to us at The Line, far too young to have experienced the war but certainly old enough to have grown up in an era where the echoes of the conflict still shaped the world and could be palpably felt in the culture at large, to think that D-Day was 80 years ago, and the start of the war, five years older than that. History, or at least that chapter of it, doesn't seem that long ago. And yet here we are. Our veterans pass on and soon there will be none left. We are now as far from D-Day as those veterans were from Gen. Grant taking command of the Union Armies and Gen. Sherman beginning his march to the sea. We are further from D-Day than the troops that landed on Juno Beach were from Confederation.

It’s not just the veterans that we are losing. The world they built also seems to be fading away. Readers of The Line know that we are, in general, very pessimistic about the state of the country and the world. But we don't need to dwell on that today. Today, we can simply be grateful for the sacrifice and bravery of those men and women, the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Canadian and Allied militaries, who began what Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly called the great crusade on the shores of Normandy four score years ago. We can also remember with pride and a little sadness how Canada truly stood among giants on that day, and truly did what we still so often claim to do: punch above our weight.

Many Allied nations sent contingents to D-Day, but only the United States, Britain and Canada fielded divisions tasked with seizing beaches and moving inland. Canada took on that task at Juno beach, and performed well, standing proud among the giants of the era. And best of all, we did it for a truly noble and honourable cause — a just war, and a necessary war, that we did not shy away from. 

The world needed more Canada then, and Canada delivered. We were imperfect as a nation, with much growing to do, but we stood proudly on the right side of history — that's normally an expression we avoid, but it truly fits here. Canada could, and did, lead. And our cause was righteous.

In a world where the geopolitical order is deteriorating and might once again seems set to make right, we should remember that. And we should always remember that we could lead again. 

For today, though, we'll simply thank our veterans, living and dead, for their service, their sacrifice, and perhaps most of all, their example. We remember you. We always will.

- The Line editors.