Did Canada really have its “coming of age” at Vimy Ridge? What is meant by “coming of age” anyway? Are the celebrations of the 100 year anniversary of the 4 day battle at Vimy just glorification of war, and part of the war tourism trend? Is all this hype about the gathering at the Vimy Memorial just the media? Did Canada have more “coming of age” later on at Dieppe, Juno Beach, Bosnia, or even Kandahar Province? Why is “coming of age” an event of war?
Could our “coming of age” be the completion of the Canadian East-West transcontinental railway in 1885? Surely, Confederation in 1867 rates up there too. How about when we got our current flag in 1965?
My great-grandfather enlisted in the Canadian Army in Toronto at the age of 40 to fight for King and Country in 1916. He was wounded at Vimy. I remember my grandmother telling me after he got back home, that it was two years before he could sleep at night without the lights being on. He told my father in 1939, never go to war. My father’s cousin, was killed on flying operations over Holland in 1944. I have been to his gravesite in Veenendal and attended a memorial service for him in 2015 with more than 200 of the townsfolk. I have visited the Vimy Memorial twice, and seen the displays, cemeteries, and the pristine re-creations of the trenches, minus the mud, blood, filth, putrefying corpses, and of course, giant rats. This is the reality of trench warfare that is not talked about.
No denigration of our fallen and wounded soldiers is intended, and people should take time to remember them and support or military commitments. But Vimy the “coming of age” for Canada, I think not.
E.R.Syme
Brentwood Bay