Remembrance Day. Veterans Day in the USA. My parents were involved in the Second World War, dad as a driver for a brigadier, mom as a policewoman-fire warden. They were married in a family ceremony in an English church, my dad in uniform, a couple of years before the war ended. Oh yeah – they were English. (So many wars since, so many different sides.) We immigrated to Canada in 1951.

Usually at this time of year I’m at the NAR Conference in the USA but because it’s in Anaheim and I’m not a Disney fanatic, I chose not to attend. I’ll miss the different perspective the Americans have on Veterans Day compared to Canada. It’s not a state holiday – except for national events, it’s a work day for most. Secondly, if you are wearing a poppy, you’re either a U.S. politician or a Canadian.

It’s strange the symbol of the poppy is so Canadian. Americans – those south of the 49th and north of the Rio Grande (after all, we’re American too) – are the most patriotic citizens I know. Perhaps a bit too quick to praise, thank or blame God, but at the drop of a coin toss in the NFL, there’s the colour party of U.S. Marines followed by a fly past of the Blue Angels while everyone stands with hands over heart. In baseball, just to show it is America’s game, they start with the Star Spangled Banner and then, in the seventh inning stretch, sing God Bless America or America the Beautiful. More stand ups than at Comedy Central.

In Canada, we’re content to sing along with our current national anthem. (Remember when it was God Save the Queen?) At the Vancouver Canucks home games we’re so polite, the anthem singer shares the mid chorus of O Canada with the crowd. Have you ever been asked to lead a group in the singing of O Canada? If you want to strike terror in the hearts of any audience, ask one of them to lead the singing. They’d rather say a prayer. Getting someone to say grace is easier than to hit that first note of O Canada! The cool thing is the rest of the crowd is so grateful they weren’t asked, they’ll leap into the fray with enthusiasm once led.

Then there’s the fear of forgetting the words – one thing to sing along, another to lead. How many “far and wides” are there? Do we “stand on guard” twice or three times? What’s that bit in the middle about “sons” or is it “suns”? Why “true north” – doesn’t everyone know it’s the magnetic north that’s in Canada?  There’s a second verse? And why do citizens of the USA sing My Country ‘Tis of Thee to the same tune as God Save the Queen? And who rhymed “tis of thee” with “liberty”?

Patriotism is a mystery. Why do we get choked up when one of our athletes climbs the podium in a foreign land to claim a gold medal? What moves us, beside respect, to stand silently in great numbers as a casualty of the Afghan war is repatriated? Why do we wear with pride the flag pin? What moves our mothers to send us overseas only after she has sewn a Canadian flag prominently on a hat or jacket or duffel bag? In a sea of national flags, why do we seek our own?

I served with the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve, rising to the dizzying rank of lieutenant after three years as a cadet with the University Naval Training Division (UNTD). They were the best summers of my learning life, spent in Cornwallis, N.S., Halifax and Hamilton, with postings to three frigates (four-inch guns, 40mm Bofors and depth charges — yahoo!) and lots of mucking about in small boats – gate vessels, YMTs and YFPs, and whalers (not the Boston kind, the original Herman Melville!)

If you want your children’s patriotism reinforced, consider the military cadet programs – I happen to favour the senior service but I think I was unduly influenced by boyhood readings of The Cruel Sea and Horatio Hornblower. Those books were introduced through the sea cadet program at RCSCC Admiral De Wolf. (De Wolf was the commanding officer of Canada’s most famous warship, HMCS Haida, a tribal class destroyer enshrined as a national historic site in Hamilton Harbour.) The cadet programs for army, navy and air force are wonderful opportunities for young people, learning lifelong skills and resulting in better – in my opinion – career choices. Mastering a musical instrument, piloting a glider, racing sailboats, survival training, navigation, not to mention the opportunities for travel across Canada and the world are character building. Many who enter the cadet programs are accepted into advanced education programs through military college.

And by the way, I think the Chief of Defence Staff got a raw deal for his use of the Challenger jet. Here is a man, the latest of an outstanding group of men to fill the role, whose pay is around $225,000 according to the last Google info I could access. He is responsible for 90,000 men and women, many of whom are in harms way daily. He interrupts his family holiday to honour Canadians killed in Afghanistan and we begrudge his use of a government aircraft to reunite him with his family. Seriously?

Meanwhile David Hahn is running the B.C. Ferry fleet of some 35 ships and several thousand personnel and his annual pension will be nearly double the CDS’s annual salary. And as angry as some folks get at Mr. Hahn, he rarely has to wear body armour or have armed protection.

Remembrance Day – lest we forget.