Re: “Against celebrating Vimy Ridge” (Letters, April 14)
Although I do not know Charles Jeanes personally, I have read many of his letters over the years, and I consider him to be a very thoughtful man, a man who truly does believe in freedom and free speech, unlike the indoctrinated warmongers who would vilify him for his thoughtful anti-war stance, while simultaneously claiming that their warring gave us our freedom.
My father taught me many years ago that the contention that all those western Canadian farm boys truly signed up to go to war to fight for freedom was pure BS.
The truth was that the 1929 stock market crash had thrown the west into abject poverty, and their wonderful free country had refused to do much to mitigate that poverty for 10 years prior to the war. The best the government could offer was to through them into a work camp where they were required to labour for next to no wages.
There just was no money. But suddenly in 1939, once they declared war, well, money was no object, so those poor men who had been starved for the previous 10 years could sign up and expect to get three meals a day, new clothes, a warm place to sleep, and a pay cheque to boot.
So they were happy to sign up, and be permitted to live like men again, even if it might mean dying like pawns on the battlefield. Some of course did get brainwashed into believing that they were heroes, but only the dull witted really believed that.
I too am tired of the way our politicians and religious leaders paint their false pictures, and amazed that the hoi-polloi continues to swallow them so enthusiastically. Charles Jeanes does our country great service by standing up against and speaking out against these falsehoods. He is a brave man. My hat is off to him.
Rod Retzlaff
Glade