But more importantly, today is Remembrance day

And Remembrance day is very important.

This past easter I had the opportunity to go on a school trip with a couple of history teachers. We visited a lot of battle sites in northern France, all with Canadian ties. We saw Vimy Ridge, the battlefield, tunnels, and memorial, and we saw Beaumont-Hamel, where the Battle of the Somme resulted in the Newfoundland regiment being quite wiped out, and we saw Juno beach, the memorial centre, and the cemetery outside of Arromanches. At that cemetery, we were all given a flower to put at whichever grave we wished as a way to show respect.

Visiting that cemetery isn't easy. It's very hard to walk up and down the rows of graves, reading the name and age of each soldier, reading the epitaphs someone wrote for them. I placed my flowers at the grave that finally made me cry.

B.147929 Private
R.J. Neault
The North Nova Scotia
Highlanders
Le 8 Julliet 1944 Age 23
Our son and brother

Never a father to be
Sacrificial child

After being able to see these places, see how the scars of wars are still there even 100 years later, Remembrance day takes on a very different meaning. Those wars were fought so long ago, and although learning about them in school gives them their own kind of significance, I'm very grateful that I had the privilege to be able to go and see where those battles were fought, because it really puts everything in new perspective. It feels more real to me now that I've seen the places where those people fought and died so long ago, so that I enjoy the rights I have today.

After that visit, I think of those people much more often. Because of those wars, because of the people who fought in them, I enjoy the right to obtain an education, to work in whatever field I choose, to live where I want, to freely express myself in words and beliefs, to criticize my government, to protest, to change the world some more. I think a big part of the reason I love my life so much right now is because of all those privileges- I love being able to live away from home in a big city, being able to attend an excellent university to study biology. I love that I'm able to do that freely, that I'm able to be a feminist, to be critical of the world around me as it applies to women and femininity. I'm grateful that I'm allowed to be an atheist, to believe that the world exists as it is due to chance and physics and universal laws. These things shouldn't be taken lightly, these privileges.

Because I live in a free society, I'm allowed to come home for our long weekend, to dance around to whatever kind of music I want as I pack my suitcase to head back up to school tomorrow, after visiting my old teachers who helped me through the IB program- another privilege (though it didn't always feel like it, I'm very grateful that I had the opportunity to pursue my education that way). And because people fought and died in wars a very long time ago, I live in a free society.

So I guess the right thing to say would be thank you. Although I know many of those soldiers are now dead and thus can't hear my thanks, it's still the right thing to say. If they were alive, I have a feeling they'd be happy to know that they were successful, that because they gave their all, fought, served, and died, their countries remained free. That's an incredible accomplishment, and I'm incredibly thankful that I'm allowed to live in one of the societies protected by those soldiers and doctors and officers and pilots and many other people who fought in long-ago wars.

Thank you.

-swegan