Dear Editor:
I have been reading Dr. Norman McLeod Craig’s play You’re Lucky if You’re Killed (1933) about the First World War.
The play was written to raise funds for building the cenotaph in Fergus. Not only did Craig write the play, he also took the part of Bo Cameron, a pilot in the war.
In Bo’s words, Craig was able to name the haunting fear of many who returned from the war – “There are several kinds of courage. The kind required to tell several loving mothers that I left their sons over here is one of the many kinds I haven’t got.”
Those lines explain the title of the play. Those who died in the war are remembered as heroes and face no questions about their bravery, their loyalty, their honour.
Those who returned home from the war, carried with them the guilt of having survived. Ultimately Bo chooses to not come home.
This Remembrance Day, we will not be at the cenotaph, but we will remember. May we remember not only those who died in the wars Canada has fought, but let us also remember those who returned home and wished they had not come back.
May we commit ourselves not only to remember the fallen, but to treat with kindness and compassion those who have returned.
Peter Bush,
Fergus