http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/11/remembrance051111.html

Sunrise ceremonies honour military's fallen

As the sun rose on Remembrance Day, Canadians across the country marked the occasion with solemn daybreak ceremonies.

And later this morning, a new memorial to members of Canada's military, the Seventh Book of Remembrance, will be unveiled in Ottawa as part of the country's Remembrance Day ceremonies.

The black leather-bound book contains the names of more than 1,000 Canadian Forces members who have died in the service of their country from October 1947 to today, not including those who died in the Korean War, which has a separate book.

The Seventh Book of Remembrance marks the first time fallen peacekeepers have been recognized in this way. It will be placed alongside six previous books in the Memorial Chamber below the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill.

The first six books contain the names of Canadians killed in the South African War and the Nile Expedition, the First and Second World Wars and Korea.

There are also books to honour the Merchant Navy and soldiers from Newfoundland, which only joined Confederation in 1949.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean will dedicate the latest book on Parliament Hill as part of Remembrance Day ceremonies.

One of those whose names will appear in the book is Sgt. Marc Leger. He died in 2002 in Afghanistan along with three fellow soldiers, killed by a bomb dropped from an American fighter plane.

His father and mother, Richard and Claire Leger, will take part in the ceremony. Claire Leger is this year's Silver Cross Mother.

Claire Leger says she expects she'll feel pride but at the same time deep sorrow when the Governor General unveils the book and she sees her son's name.

"It's like we're burying our son one more time. But if you don't have that recognition, and these ceremonies, it's extremely important," she said. "It's almost like you're happy that it's going on, but it's not because it makes you so sad. You're in between the two."

Nancy Ellis, an Ottawa calligrapher, wrote every name in the book. It took her four months in her studio to complete the list of names in ink on calf-skin parchment.

Writing the names, she says, allowed her time to think of each person who died.

"I think, at my age, I feel more sorry for the families. I think that's always the worst part," she said. "And I don't know whether it really helps. It hasn't happened to me.

"So, I don't know whether it really, truly helps to go to a memorial book in a memorial chamber and see your loved one's name in a book. But I really hope it does. I really hope that it provides them with some sense of solace."

Richard and Claire Leger are sure they'll take some comfort seeing their son's name in the book. But his loss is still a source of immense sorrow for them and Remembrance Day brings it all to the surface.

Ellis calls the Seventh Book of Remembrance a living volume. Entire pages are blank. But over time, those pages will be filled.

Good post Spidey!!!!!!!! My grandmother's 2nd hubby was Polish and was in the Polish Army as an ammunitions guy. He was captured and sent to a concentration where he stayed until the liberation. I'm 39 yrs old now, and although he died 20 some years ago, we would sit and I, being 6-7 yrs old would ask him to tell me stories about the war and his captivity. Well I guess there are some memories you can't erase... maybe I was too young to hear of the atrocities and to see his wounds from torture are visible in my mind today. I'm always emotional on this day because it's probabky the only time I ever think of him and what he and our fellow Canadians and other nation's soldiers went through in a time where the outcome of this war could've changed our lives ( and for those of us who weren't born yet).

TO ALL VETERANS, AND OUR FALLEN HEROES, AND THEIR FAMILIES i SALUTE YOU FOR YOUR ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR US.

tO MY GRANDFATHER MICHAEL STACHNIUK, YOUR MEMORY WILL ALWAYS LIVE IN THIS GUY'S HEART.

quote from normie.."'nuff said". Gotta wipe my eyes and get back to work!  

Way to go Spidey, I was going to post the same poem, you beat me to it. A sobering thought after last night's "loss" wouldn't you say ?

...If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon we flung him in,

And watch with white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin;

If you could hear at every jolt the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori

Wilfred Owen, KIA, 1918

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

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Magee was 19 when he died.  What a talent he had for poetry!  Incidentally, he was an American, but fought for Canada (in the RCAF), since the US had not yet entered the war.