Remembrance Day is one of the few holidays I "celebrate". I mean, sure, I enjoy my days off on BC Day, Canada Day, etc, but Remembrance Day is one where I truly try to capture the spirit of the day.

Driving in to work today (I had to make up for some serious sloth on Friday), I realized that it was the 11th hour. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. I started thinking about the much lauded HBO series Band Of Brothers, of which I have seen a couple of episodes. I watched Saving Private Ryan (am I corny?) on Remembrance Day a few years ago. I was there to experience its depiction of the war, rather than the story line. I have to say that the first 10 minutes made me sick ... but this is a good thing.

As I was thinking about the attrocities of war, I passed the Saanich Municiple Hall. The street was half cordoned off, and there were a few hundred people participating in a Remembrance Day ceremony. The cars in front of me slowed down, and I think that this time it was in honour, rather than the usual rubbernecking and gawking that goes on when passing some spectacle (like a car crash). At least, I hope so.

I have been interested in the 20th century wars since my grade 12 history class, and carried on studies in that area at university. I find myself growing much more appalled by war as I grow older. I never liked it, but as society grows more tolerant of violence in TV and film, we can be exposed more and more to the gruesome realities.

I didn't watch too much of the Gulf War in the early nineties, and even less of the war in Iraq earlier this year. I think it's pretty amazing that we can watch in the detail that we do, but common decency (and military censorship) doesn't show the actual gritty truth.

So, back to Band Of Brothers. I found the couple of episodes that I watched *very* disturbing. The idiocy of some costing the lives of others, the (in my mind) insanity of running at a fortified enemy strong hold in order to try and take it, the gruesomeness, the death and pain. I don't really want to watch, but I will do anyway - to try and understand.

It may seem to be trivializing war - to watch a rendering on TV - but I feel that, out of respect, I should try to understand what these men and women have sacrificed for the greater good. Right or wrong, these people went out into hell, losing lives, body parts, loved ones, and their souls for that which we all believed in so strongly.

As the card beside the rose says: "Thanks Dad, Thanks Grandpa".