BEAUDRY: Today's veteran... cancelled by the Government of Canada we served

Ivan Beaudry is a veteran who served in the Canadian military for 15 years. He deployed on six overseas missions and received the Sacrifice Medal as a result for injuries sustained in Afghanistan. He lives in Pierrefonds-RoxboroNever has it been such a bad time in the history of our country to be a veteran. With less than 9,000 World War II or Korean veterans alive today, our society has moved away from the importance of Remembrance Day and acknowledging military service because we, as a nation, are so far removed from conflict in our everyday life. No one under 50 really knows what the two world wars were about, and what that would have meant for us today, had not Canada and the allies won. Instead, in 2024, we are now a nation that recognizes the individual citizen, whose believe their own personal struggles are equally as valid as anyone else’s regardless of what they have done. This means for us younger veterans, going to the other side of the planet to fight wars is undervalued. It doesn’t seem to matter to other Canadians any more, especially if we come back injured and ask for help. I don’t blame my fellow citizen for becoming this way. I blame the current government for allowing this to happen. .Our government wants to accommodate everyone, in hopes of not taking a stance to favor one type of citizen over another. Or perhaps they hope that it will secure that vote during the next election campaign. However, the real problem is that this creates an even larger divide than necessary, because we no longer remain committed to being a nation with a common purpose: making everything matter at the same time doesn’t allow us to collectively determine what is important and what is not. It is difficult to convince a society of “me,” that we need to band together and become “us” to defend our homeland or to help others defend theirs.At the same time, our government hasn’t tried to change the public’s perception of what a veteran is. One might ask when the last World War II and Korean veterans pass, whether Remembrance should be a day where we remember veterans who fought in World War I or II, or should it be about remembering and recognizing everyone during this period? Those who didn’t go to war and instead supplied, manufactured and fed the soldiers on the front lines also served, and did so courageously. The perception about this day or about our military shouldn’t change. But when politicians change the wording or meaning of what a veteran is, they fail the veteran of today. As we did not fight in World War I or II, we fought and went where our country sent us, but Canada doesn’t publicize it.What does this mean for the roughly 400,000 (1.5% of the population) who are considered veterans who did not participate in World War II or the Korean war? For, our government continues to:-Allow our military history to be only publicized about our past involvements more than 50 years ago.-It allows the Royal Canadian Mint to continually only issue World War I and World War II coins depicting these battles, and only producing coins of veterans who are elderly and frail.-It touts peacekeeping on the world stage but here in Canada will not highlight what our soldiers did, who we are and what we went through.In other words, our government continues to cancel the 21st century Canadian veteran, leaving the public with no knowledge of all our sacrifices to our country, where it is now all about being an individual citizen.Let’s make this Remembrance Day no longer only about the past. We should be talking about what we have to do today, to prevent the past from repeating itself.Ivan Beaudry is a veteran who served in the Canadian military for 15 years. He deployed on six overseas missions and received the Sacrifice Medal as a result for injuries sustained in Afghanistan. He lives in Pierrefonds-Roxboro.

BEAUDRY: Today's veteran... cancelled by the Government of Canada we served

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