Achievement…and lost potential
As Remembrance Day approaches and we recall and commemorate the sacrifices of those who died while serving, we should also be reminded that one of the costs of war is the loss of what those ill-fated men and women—more than 100,000 in the two world wars—could have accomplished if they had lived on in peacetime.
The article “Last soldier standing” on page 18 profiles the last surviving veteran of each war in which Canada fought—from the War of 1812 to the First World War. One lived to the age of 100 and had a lengthy postwar career as an admiral. Another ran an oil business, got his pilot’s licence at 65 and high-school diploma at 95, and wrote his autobiography at 100.
Thousands of Second World War and Korean War veterans live on. Many have had postwar lives that, one way or another, e...