WAGENINGEN, Netherlands (CP) - As a young private from Gaspe, Que., Charles Bouchard wasn't aware just how big a piece of history he was watching unfold on May 5, 1945, when he stood guard outside the brick hotel where the Germans surrendered Holland to a Canadian general.But on Thursday, as he stood outside the De Wereld Hotel and watched more than 100,000 Dutch residents turn out for a military parade to mark Liberation Day, the significance of that brief meeting was everywhere.
This year's parade of veterans will be the last the Dutch organize -- all the remaining vets are in their mid-to-late eighties; few if any will be alive to commemorate the 70th anniversary of V-E Day.
It struck me, too, while watching it on TV that this is probably the last time that anyone will refer to Canadian troops as liberators. Oh, sure, we're still capable of small, shrivelled gestures like Martin's recent pledge to send 150 soldiers to Sudan. A transparently cynical gesture meant more to prop up his government than to do anything about the ongoing genocide in Darfur.
I wonder if those people will hold parades sixty years hence to celebrate the arrival of the Canadians. What will they praise them for? Watching?
Comments (2)
DATE: 05/13/2005 11:18:45 PM
V-E day was not the end of history. We haven't seen the end of history. (Hopefully the end of it -- if that's even possible concomitant with the existence of human consciousness -- will be liberty for all, which, of course, no country at present enjoys.)
Posted by Michael Cust | August 19, 2009 11:10 AM
Posted on August 19, 2009 11:10
DATE: 05/15/2005 08:49:36 PM
My point was ironic -- there of course is history to be made, but successive governments have so driven this nation to irrelevance that it is impossible to think of Canada ever again playing the kind of role it did in WWII.
Posted by gnotalex | August 19, 2009 11:11 AM
Posted on August 19, 2009 11:11