…presented at St. John's Lodge No. 82, Paris, November 11, 2008.

Each year we all have the choice to stop the things that we are doing to pay respect and remember the valiant men and women that made the supreme sacrifice they paid with their lives for our freedom and liberty. A couple of weeks ago I spent a week in Guelph for workshop and had the opportunity to drive through the area that I grew up in, and in doing so drove past this small cenotaph that we as children went to every remembrance day. It was almost a cold felling as the memory of that bugle playing the last post echoed in my mind. This small cenotaph was the one beside the homestead of Colonel John McCrea who we all know for the poem In Flanders Fields. I also was very proud to have attended the John McCrea Public School .

I hope that you have taken the opportunity on this the eleventh day of the eleventh month and at the eleventh hour to pay tribute with just a moment of silents for our veterans. Many years ago I also had the opportunity to travel abroad to my father's homeland, Holland . On this trip we where able to travel throughout many towns and villages but one in particular outing was to a town called Nadervert which was located towards the Dutch, German, Belgian boarder. As we walked through a hedged arch, into a cemetery that was for the Canadian soldiers that had fallen in the war, it was the most beautifully manicured cemetery that I think I had ever saw, but in fact we had a purpose to be there, it was to find the grave of Jim Gibson. Our relative had lost her brother in the war and really had no disclosure, for many years all she had was the name of this little town somewhere in Holland . We walked through row after row of tomb stones, all of men in their early twenties that had paid the same price as Jim Gibson. Many times I have reflected back to walking through the rows of headstones in disbelief and wondered why this tragedy ever had to happen.

Today in 2008 marks the 90 th anniversary of the end of the 1 st world war. It was not only the men that were fighting that we must reflect on but we must also remember the families that remained behind at home to support the cause and today is no different as the many men and women on peace keeping missions in Afghanistan . Today let us be proud that we are mason and we practice the fundamental principles of masonry which are Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth in our own quest to make this world a better place in which we live.

 

Please stand and repeat the poem In Flanders Field.