Remembering Our Soldiers

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, and at 11:11 we will remember those who have given their lives to protecting our country and those who continue to do so. I would like to especially thank my family members who have served in the Armed Forces - please know that I think of you often and I am always in awe.

If you need a few ideas for Remembrance Day reading, I highly suggest The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer. It is a quasi-memoir/novella about his own research into his grandfather's participation in the First World War. He brings the soldiers of that war to life, giving them voices and recreating, on an emotional level, the experience of a country at war - not only soldiers travelling to the front and expecting to be home by Christmas, but those left behind trying to make sense of what is happening and fearing for their loved ones; and, after the war is over, those same loved ones returning home changed forever. It is a powerful book and Dyer is intense and blunt with his observations. Worth a read.