Today I received this inspiring note from Jamie Bogle, a friend and fellow proud colonial who served in the Queen’s Own Hussars…

Dear Canadians and others,

After marching yesterday, brollied and bowler-hatted with officers of my old Regiment, the Queen’s Own Hussars, and with 10,000 other marchers, in a very memorable day at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, and at Horse Guards, I thought we needed more remembrance of the Commonwealth.

So here’s thanks to Canada’s heroes – fully 1% of the entire Canadian population became casualties in WW I – all too shamefully forgotten by the Empire whom they so faithfully served, doing so all over again in WW II.

This latter was the only version of O Canada! I could find that wasn’t ruined by crooning or rendered into ghastly schmaltz by some cheesy “pop” singer…

And let’s not forget those incredibly heroic Newfies at Beaumont Hamel when almost the entire Royal Newfoundland Regiment was wiped out in that most senseless of all wars and for what?

Well, the only rational way to think of it is that it was a massive sacrifice of the innocent to atone for the grotesque sins and follies of faithless previous generations and their leaders in the retreat from Christianity, and even from God, that has been the chief feature of our culture since the godless Satanism of the French Revolution. And what a sacrifice! Millions of young men never to return to their native lands, wives, families and sweethearts – truly shocking.

Finally the true old anthem of the Dominion… The Maple Leaf forever…

Here’s remembering,

Jamie

To this note, I responded that it wasn’t that long ago that the distinction between Canada and Britain was not so very sharp, and most Canadians could have been considered equally Canadian and British citizens, as indeed my own possession of both a British and Canadian passport attest. Canadians serving the Empire were for all intents and purposes Brits. All my immediate ancestors served in those wars. My maternal great grandfather and my paternal grandfather both served in the Great War, and then in WWII in, respectively, the Home Guard and as a communications officer in London. My maternal grandfather was a Texan who went over for D-Day from the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. For my family at any rate these wars formed the basis of all our lives for four generations.

I beg readers to pray for the repose of the souls of my grandfathers, veterans Norman Hucknell White of Hamstead, England/Parksville, British Columbia, Canada and Herbert Edward Burkett of Waco, Texas and my great grandfather, William Doloughan of Salisbury, England.

 

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