“Their Name Liveth For Evermore.”
The poet of Empire, Rudyard Kipling, who loved Canada, chose these words to be inscribed at Imperial and Commonwealth war cemeteries at the end of the Great War, in which his own son died.
We can see them at memorials in France, in Holland, and Belgium, in Hong Kong, and here in Canada – in places where our gallant fallen lie buried.
The full text comes from the Hebrew Scripture, “And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. [But] … their glory shall not be blotted out. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth forevermore.”
We are here because we are compelled to honour those whose bodies are buried in peace. For us to be here is a sign of our shared citizenship with the living and the dead, a bond between those who have died and those who are not yet born. To be here is to renew a pledge of our shared love of our country, and to affirm that freedom is never free.
Sadly, there are some who misunderstand what draws us here. To them we say that Remembrance Day does not glorify war. These ceremonies are precisely how we recall together the horror of war and how great the loss – by remembering those who sacrificed for the sake of peace, who knew what it was to be there, and by supporting those who have been left behind.
As Minister of Immigration, I am conscious that many veterans’ stories are also immigrant stories. Let me highlight one that illustrates both astonishing self-sacrifice, and the power of memory for Canadian descendants.
Consider the life of Ishar Singh, who served in the British Army during the First World War, and then in Afghanistan. Severely wounded in fighting near Haidari Kach and bleeding badly, he dragged himself to his feet, rallied his section and charged the enemy, using his own body to shield his men. For this brave action, he received the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour, in 1921. Later his descendants immigrated to Canada and made their home in Calgary, where Ishar Singh’s is one of the faces that make up the Mural of Honour at these Military Museums. And throughout the past decade, Canadians served in terrain close to where Ishar Singh led the charge.
The gritty Canadian war poet Suzanne Steele, has memorialized those Canadians who fought the forces of terror and extremism in Afghanistan. Here are words she wrote for Corporal Anthony Bonica, Lake Superior Scottish Regiment, who died in 2006, in Panjawaii:
In fields of grape vine and blinding dust,
infantryman eyes to memory
the “shared deprivation” of the hours
—tedium, courage, fear, thirst—
this is no camping trip;
he rolls a dip, slips it between teeth and lip,
checks radio net, his tack, his weapon, his ammo, ruck,
tightens helmet strap,
falls into place,
night-goggles out into hot black
early Pashmul morning.
In fields of grape vine and powder-dust,
where pomegranate and poppies swell to burst
and walled villages are spider traps,
infantryman climbs to the rooftop
slowly, slowly, slow
one stair, one step, one stride,
to meet his bullet outside
the wire
halfway across the world from home,
halfway across the world …
Honoured veterans, fellow Canadians, our history encompasses sacrifices all across the globe on behalf of peace and human dignity. It is not for war that we gather here, but to remember the brave fallen, that their name would liveth for evermore.
May God preserve their sacred memory.
God bless Canada, and God save the Queen.
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