By Maj Jesse Hollington
Eternal vigilance
A responsibility—to ourselves and our cadets—to remember
The price of freedom is
eternal vigilance —Thomas Jefferson
Those who cannot remember
the past are condemned to
repeat it. —George Santayana
f there is a fundamental responsibili-
I ty for us as members of a military
organization and citizens of a free
country, it is to ensure that we never
allow ourselves to forget the great
sacrifices of the past.
On June 6, 1944, hundreds of
Canadian soldiers participated in the
Allied invasion at Normandy Beach.
This invasion was conducted against
heavily fortified German positions
and against incredible odds. This
was the turning point in a war that
had ravaged most of Europe and was
the first significant victory against the
German war machine.
But this victory came with a price—
most of these soldiers did not come
back. The sacrifices of these solders
have become almost legendary, but
we must never lose sight of the fact
that these soldiers were not super-
heroes. Rather, they were normal
everyday men, who believed in the
cause of freedom for which they were
fighting and committed themselves to
drawing a line against the darkness
that had plagued most of Europe.
Most of these soldiers were boys—
younger than our senior cadets.
In the intervening 60 years, it seems
that we as a society have collectively
forgotten or downplayed these con-
tributions as being of little signifi-
cance. Today we have the luxury of
living in a free society that seems
untouched by the tyranny of the past
and have fallen into a comfortable
Professional Development for Leaders of the Cadet Program
routine of assuming that
it can never happen again.
In such a mindset, we find
ourselves forgetting that we
enjoy these comforts because of the
sacrifices made by thousands of men
and women during not one, but two
world wars.
Further, the ideological complications
of the many conflicts on the interna-
tional scene have produced a genera-
tion of individuals who would have us
believe that by remembering these
sacrifices we are only glorifying war.
The result is that many in society con-
tinue to lose their memory in a wash
of misguided social consciousness.
In 1990, I was selected to participate
in an international air cadet exchange
to the Netherlands. One single defin-
ing memory of that experience is the
total strangers who, upon realizing
that I was Canadian, came up to me
and thanked me for the sacrifices of
my nation and my ancestors. It was a
sobering experience to realize that
these were people who had lived
through a fascist occupation and who
genuinely saw our Canadian soldiers
as the liberators of their country. One
elderly Dutch man said to me in halt-
ing English, “We owe your people a
debt that can never be repaid.”
The Netherlands is a place that
remembers—that does not allow its
sons and daughters to forget the great
sacrifices that ensured its people
could enjoy freedom. It understands
the price that was paid—and the
reason that price had to be paid—
because its people lived through it.
We are the inheritors of this legacy
and should do ourselves and our
forefathers proud by ensuring that
we remember their sacrifices with
the same pride.
Each Nov. 11, we take time to
remember those who gave every-
thing to preserve our freedom. As
Cadet Program leaders, we have an
opportunity to ensure that our cadets
not only remember, but also help
others understand the sacrifices
made and why they were necessary. I
believe it is this duty to which John
McCrae speaks in this line from his
famous poem “In Flanders Fields”—
“To you from failing hands we throw,
the torch; be yours to hold it high….”
To remember these sacrifices is not
to glorify war, but to celebrate peace
by ensuring that we prize freedom
and remain always ready to draw the
line against oppression.
Maj Hollington is the commanding
officer of 707 Air Cadet Squadron
in Etobicoke, Ont.
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