Today is the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year and, at its 11th hour, we give a moment's silence to thank the dead for our freedom.
Remembrance Day should be every day, but it isn't.
It is just today.
There are no longer survivors of the First World War living among us.
Canada's last link to the 650,000 brave Canadians who served in WWI was John Babcock, who died in February 2010 at the age of 109, still disappointed that he was kept away from the front lines because he was caught lying about his age.
"His family mourns the passing of a great man," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said back then. "Canada mourns the passing of the generation that asserted our independence and established our international reputation as an unwavering champion of freedom."
As time moves on, the veterans of the Second World War are quickly dwindling in numbers as mortality takes its toll.
Old soldiers do die, but it is up to us that they not fade away.
The majority of our veterans today are young, but we should not think that combat in Afghanistan or, say, peacemaking in the Balkans, was any walk in the park.
We have spoken to many who came under fire, and have yet to hear that no nightmares ever came to visit .
In many ways, their battles have just begun.
Post-traumatic stress disorder may have only been recently discovered, but it is hardly new.
Long ago it was called shell shock, and then battle fatigue, but it wasn't any kinder.
Those of the Boomer Generation, our largest demographic, are the lucky ones.
They never had to go to war, and never had to put their lives on the line for future generations.
Their fathers and their mothers did that for them, and their grandparents before them.
No matter where you are today, attempt to take in Remembrance Day at the cenotaph nearest to you, or at least give pause at the 11th hour.
Lest you forget, you will be forgetting those who fought and died for a generation that had yet to be born.
A generation that includes you.
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