Blogging at the Big Dog

I was a city boy most of my life. Consequently, it wasn’t until the last five years I was even aware one of our country’s most venerable institutions is being threatened with virtual extinction.

For more than a generation, The Royal Canadian Legion was the heart and soul of small towns across Canada, as essential as the curling rink, the hockey arena and service organizations such as Lions and Rotary. Of course, the Legion also exists in cities, but it’s really easy to miss completely.

Ever since I’ve been living in rural areas and working for community newspapers, however, a year doesn’t go by when I’m all too aware as the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day bring front page headlines of waning Legion membership.

I can’t begin to describe how lucky I feel to have been born into an era of such sustained peace for our country that the Legion is in jeopardy. The fact of the matter is, there just haven’t been that many new Canadian war veterans to swell Legion ranks in a very long time. Basically, I know I won the lottery of birth, I don’t even qualify for ordinary or associate membership in the Legion because not only did I never serve (although I did work on a national technology project for the Armed Forces a few years back), but I don’t even know of a family member who did (or does).

Nevertheless, once a year, even those of us who are more than a generation removed from the last great conflict our country was involved in don little red poppies (a practice that is now almost 90 years old) and, not so much remember, but try to appreciate the sacrifices both those still living and those who have died made for us.

It’s all the more pertinent today as the conflict in Afghanistan is actually creating new Canadian war veterans, and war dead, for the first time in more than half a century, albeit at a rate that is orders of magnitude smaller than that of the two world wars. If I’m being honest, it would be great to live in a world where the Royal Canadian Legion was unnecessary, but we don’t and we should not let it fade into obscurity.

The Fort Qu’Appelle branch of the Legion is currently engaged in a membership drive. I want to encourage everyone to at least check it out (I’m going to). Even if you don’t end up joining, they’ve got a nice lounge over there on Company Avenue with inexpensive beer. Personally, I’d like to see a few dart boards, maybe a dart league, but they have cribbage, a big screen TV and lots of great stories to tell. Did I mention inexpensive beer? See you over there.