Every year, I bow my head in a minute of silence, remembering the sacrifice so many have made, and continue to make, for our country.
But do I really remember?
I am of an age that any relatives who fought in the World Wars had either died before I was born, or at least before I was old enough to know about war.
I have never had to kiss someone I loved goodbye as they left for battle, I have never faced conscription, I have never had to ration my food. I have never known war.
In the six years of the Second World War, more than one million men and women enlisted in the Armed Forces. At the time, Canada was a country of 11 million people. In the First World War, 619,636 Canadians served in the Forces. Of these 66,655 did not return. That's over one in 10. One in 10.
These numbers are easy to find. They are taught in school. But it's hard to understand their magnitude, until you understand the importance of just one.
This year is Year of the Veteran. It is also the year Canada's last World War I vet died, taking with him a link, however tenuous, to a time when Canada, and the world, was a place very different from the one we live in today.
Much sooner than we think, our living link to the Second World War will also slip away, to be buried among facts and accounts in books.
I was mulling this over as I followed the Remembrance Day parade back to the Legion for lunch.
While there, I invited myself to join the table of a few well-decorated veterans. I introduced myself to Harold, Don and George, as well as George's wife Olive.
Sitting there, enjoying a beer and the good company, I was struck by how ordinary these men seemed, and yet they had witnessed the unimaginable horrors of the Second World War.
I asked Harold, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, how he acquired one of his medals.
"You know," he said, "someone asked me that once and I told him because I lived. Not too many of us did."
Don and George, who served in the navy, told me that, at the time, Canada was just coming through the Depression, and joining the forces meant being fed and clothed - often a bit better than many were accustomed to.
Don said he was also happy to have his schooling paid for when he came back, and said he has had no complaints against Veteran's Affairs.
We also talked a bit about assisted living, the lack of it in the Battlefords, and how moving to Saskatoon would mean, besides leaving the community, an overwhelming cost, approximately $4,000 per month.
Although I didn't say it, this angered me. I had met three men who fought for us, for our freedom, and I found our community could not manage an assisted living facility for these heroes.
I suppose that's when I realized I had put faces to those numbers, and I hope everyone takes the opportunity to thank a veteran in person, while they still have the chance.
Next year, when I bow my head, it will no longer be a faceless army of poppies I see, but the faces of Harold, Don and George - three ordinary men who became extraordinary when it was asked of them.
