COLUMN: Viewpoint – It is the youth who must fight and die

“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.” American President Herbert Hoover said those words. Sadly, he was absolutely correct.

Next week we will mark Remembrance Day. It’s a day to reflect on the impact of war, and a day to remember those Canadians who lost their lives serving in our country’s military. The recent tragedy on an Alberta armed forces base, that took the lives of four servicemen, reminds us of the steep cost of war, even during the stage of training for battle. The men who died at Wainwright in October were all very young, one a teenager, and the others in their early 20s.

When I lived in Hong Kong, I frequently visited the Sai Wan War Cemetery, where some 250 Canadian soldiers are buried. They died defending Hong Kong from the Japanese when they attacked the city just hours after bombing Pearl Harbour. A considerable number of the men buried in Sai Wan are from Manitoba, since the Winnipeg Grenadiers regiment was serving there during the Second World War. The cemetery is a very peaceful and beautiful place but I found it so sobering to walk along row after row of tombstones etched with maple leaves.

The soldiers’ ages weren’t listed on their grave markers but there was a book at the site where you could look them up. Leafing through its pages, reading about the dead from Brandon, Winnipeg, Selkirk and Fisher Branch, I would note how young the men were, many in their early 20s, a few of them even 19. Inevitably I would start to cry thinking about the mothers of those boys, receiving word back home in Manitoba their child had been killed overseas, and was buried in a place they would probably never get to visit.

I noticed the same phenomena walking through the war cemetery in Bény-sur-Mer in Normandy France where more than 2,000 Canadian men are buried. These were the soldiers who stormed Juno Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The average age of the 14,000 Canadian troops who landed on Juno Beach was 22 years old. Many of those serving were younger than that, some still in their teens. Our guide, who walked with us on Juno Beach and explained what happened in 1944, was a teenager himself. He said Canada deliberately hires young people to give the Juno Beach tours, so visitors will be reminded just how young the soldiers were that died there.

In Winnipeg’s Vimy Ridge Park where I often take my granddaughters to play, there is a statue of a soldier named Andrew Mynarski who joined the Canadian Airforce at age 25. He died in 1944 when he was flying a mission over France, and tried to save a fellow crewmember, as their plane spiraled to the ground, after being hit by enemy fire. The sculptor has given Andrew such a kind face. He is bending low and reaching out a helping hand to someone. It makes me so sad to think of the contributions a man of Andrew’s character could have made to his family and community, had war not cut his life short, had he not died when he was so young.

Sometimes I think if the world leaders who declare war, usually old, wealthy, powerful men sitting in safe government citadels, had to go out and fight themselves, they might make different decisions. Too often they distance themselves from the young people they send to war, who end up paying its devastating price.

“Older men declare war. But it is the youth who must fight and die.”