It was at that moment that I truly understood the difference between valour and courage.
Courage, of course, is the ability to do something one finds frightening, while valour is strength, determination, heroic bravery in the face of unimaginable danger.
Part of the act of remembrance is to remember that these were boys — kids we would call them today — who fought a war which was not their own. They were volunteers, every last one of them, who understood that the duty of a free citizen is the willingness to fight to preserve that freedom.
They took the beaches, many of them in their first military engagement, and remained fiercely committed to holding that ground as the world fell apart around them.
And the beach was only the beginning.
Their belief in a better world drove them further and further — from the beaches of Normandy to the heart of the continent and beyond. Caen, where Canadian flags flew this week alongside the tricolore, was a turning point on this road to salvation. A city martyred for peace and the enduring belief in something better.
And like the city itself, that hope has endured. The veterans who spoke on Thursday told a story that books never could. A story of valour but also the insanity of a time when young people were sent into the world with Canadian emblems sewn not onto their backpacks but rather the shoulders of their uniforms.
And when the war was done and they came home, they went on to be, in the words of journalist Tom Brokaw, the “Greatest Generation,” for their resolve coming of age in the Great Depression and their sacrifice in the Second World War.
Standing on Juno Beach, I came closer to understanding the power of that resolve, realizing how the discipline of one step forward can carry a person — and a generation.
And closer to understanding just how important Laurence Binyon’s words from his poem, Ode of Remembrance, are.
As he said, “we will remember them.”
