It’s not just about remembering, its honouring. It’s not just two minutes of silence, it’s respect. It’s not just some soldier, it’s someone’s mom, dad, brother, sister, son, daughter, aunt, uncle or best friend.

Glenn Miller, retired warrant officer, explained it’s important how younger generations understand the sacrifice veterans made and what it means for us today.

“It’s important for the youth and the younger generation to appreciate what they have. If it’s taken away, they appreciate it greater. As a Canadian soldier, I’m treated far better outside of Canada than I am at home, because other countries, like the ones in Europe, have lost their freedom twice,” said Miller.

On Nov. 11 ,1918, at 11 a.m., the First World War ended. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a silence washed over the world, one of sorrow, relief, gratitude and disdain.

According to The Cost of Canada’s War on warmuseum.ca published by Canadian War Museum in 2008, “Some 619,636 Canadians enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the war and approximately 424,000 served overseas. Of these men and women, 59,544 members of the CEF died during the war, 51,748 of them as a result of enemy action.”

The 400,000 soldiers that returned home may have physically came back, but their minds lay on that field with the guns they laid down that same day, with the bodies of their fellow soldiers, with the poppies that now grow in Flanders’ field. As Canadians it’s our responsibility to remember this and remember those who never made it home.

Miller spent 25 years in the military, half of it was in Lethbridge. One of the most memorable things he took from his time in service was his decision to not get on a helicopter.

“In my tour in Bosnia, just before Remembrance Day, I was scheduled to go in a helicopter ride with some other people, and I decided not to go. That helicopter had crashed, killing all aboard.”

War doesn’t just affect soldiers; it affects the family around them.

“I know of a young girl who was like Grade 4 I think it was. Anyway, she was teased that her dad was in the military, and he’s not coming home because she knows people get killed as a result of that. That was here, in Lethbridge. She never went to a Remembrance Day service at school for six years after that. So as Grade 4 student she suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of bullying and her dad in real time,” said Miller.

Because of that teasing and bullying from classmates it would have taken her until Grade 10 when she finally went to another Remembrance Day ceremony. Instead of thanking her father for his service they bullied her into believing her dad was never coming home.

“You meet people whose dads were in internment camps, like the Hong Kong Veterans Association and the plaque we have here in the hallway. The lady that came in and presented that her dad was in camp for three and a half years and things like that hit you different,” said by Andrea Seeman, operations manager at the Royal Canadian Legion.

People forget why we have Remembrance Day. To some it’s just a day off school, or a two-minute period of standing in silence. In reality it’s for the sacrifice, the blood, the tears, the lives of the soldiers we lost and the four years, three months and two weeks spent giving us this place we call home.  Seeman hopes that we don’t forget this and take for granted what we have.

“I hope it touches them personally in a way that resonates, so that they understand that it’s not just standing quietly for two minutes. It’s understanding the fact that, you know? so many of our relatives and the veterans that are a little bit younger and stuff, they’ve gone through hell for us and literally been in internment camps for years and all of these things just to enable us to be able to, you know, sit on our phone and chill on our couches without worrying, are we going to get bombed tomorrow or that kind of thing?,” said Seeman.

Miller hopes for people to remember our fallen men and woman by wearing a poppy, not just for Remembrance Day but from the time they’re available to when it’s done.

“Show me you care by wearing a poppy not only on the Remembrance Day, but from the time they’re available from the 24th to the 11th throughout,” expressed Miller.

Lethbridge will be holding its 2026 Annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Lethbridge Trade and Convention centre hosted by the Royal Canadian Legion on Nov. 11 starting at 10:45 a.m.  Poppies are sold all over Lethbridge, wear one to honour our Canadian soldiers, think of them during the two minutes of silence and the rest if our lives. Lest We Forget them.