How Will Your Remember?

John Russell Drewery. He had a fantastic moustache, a wicked sense of humor, the best luck at poker, a great ability at telling stories, and an uncanny knack for kicking ass at Scrabble. He was my grandfather. And when he was 18, he left home, and prepared himself to die for his country.

I am lucky enough to have gotten to know my grandfather. He survived his time as an aimer in a Lancaster Bomber in the RAF. He never talked about it, and when I was younger, I always wondered why. He spent two years flying in a plane that has now become an icon of the war, a plane that was first class in a technology that had only been developed a decade before. At 8 (when I still had dreams of be coming a pilot, traveling with my pet unicorn of course), I thought this would have been the most exciting adventure in the world. And when he enrolled in the RAF, a young, handsome, innocent, 17 year old (he lied about his age) - he thought much in the same way I did (without the unicorn I would assume) - as did so many young Canadian men - they thought they were off on an adventure.

Several years ago, my dad and I travelled to Normandy to shoot a documentary and found ourselves on Juno Beach, on a cold, windy and damp day. The beach is huge (massive to be exact), the water is ice cold and dark, and there is an enormous ridge shadowing the beach about 50 yards away - there is no cover, no place to hide, no hope to make it up and over the hulking ridge. And suddenly I knew, I understood - my grandfather's time in the RAF was a huge part of who he was, but he did it so it wouldn't be a huge part of who I am. His experiences in those 3 years, were all so that he could protect me and my generation from every experiencing the same thing. Of course he wouldn't talk about it, he was fighting so we would never have to.

Thank you John. Thank you for my freedom, thank you for wicked sense of humor, thank you for the memories. We miss you.

So use Remembrance Day to remember however and whoever you want. Take a moment today and say thank you.

Check out Much Music Veteran's Week site - a great example of how to harness social media to remember, share, discuss and keep Remembrance Day alive.