What Remembrance Day reminds me of.......

[glarius]

I'm watching the Remembrance Day Ceremonies in Ottawa, which are just ending. Every time I see the faces of these aging veterans on Remembrance Day, I am reminded of a fact of why I exist. This story has been passed down through the generations in my family.
During the 1st World War, in one of the European cities where Canadians fought the Germans, my relative, who was very young, came around a corner where he was suddenly confronted by a German soldier. (The German could have shot first.) Here is what is amazing....they both stopped, looked at each other and gestured in some way to each other that neither would shoot. (Perhaps they were tired of all the killing). They passed each other by peacefully, and as a consequence I am alive today!
Looking at the lovely, lived-in faces of the old veterans taking part in the Ceremonies at the War Memorial in our capital city I am very moved.


What I'm trying to point out is the futility of war. Those who fight in them (like my relative and the German soldier) are sometimes the first to recognize this fact.