Not going to war can be an act of bravery, too

COLUMN — Somebody asked me just the other day if my father was in the war.

I don’t know how we got talking about the Second World War, or about my father, but people assume if somebody was in his 20s or 30s when the war was on, he must have been a soldier. (If my dad was still alive, he’d be 104 now.)

Yesterday (Friday) was the 70th anniversary of D-Day, when Canadians stormed Juno Beach and helped turn the tide of the war. There were a lot of ceremonies, speeches and reminiscences.

A lot of brave men died that day; a lot of heroes were made. Three hundred and fifty Canadians lost their lives; 1,600 were wounded.

My dad never went to war. He called it “that damned war.”

He was a mechanic, and a machinist. Under the National Selective Service Regulations, people needed permits to look for work and employers needed permission to advertise for workers.

The federal government gave itself the authority to force people into jobs considered essential to the war effort. It decided what kind of work was essential and what wasn’t. My father was considered essential, so he stayed home.

People go to war for all kinds of different reasons: they foolishly think there’s something romantic and brave about it, or they genuinely want to defend their country, or they have no choice because they’re poor or drafted.

People stay home, if they can, for different reasons, too: they’re afraid of getting killed, they don’t want to leave their families and jobs, or they philosophically oppose war and want nothing to do with it.

My dad was among the latter. He was no coward. He was about the most fearless, principled man I’ve ever known. But he believed war was wrong no matter who the enemy, and that allowing oneself to be part of it simply perpetuated it.

Mechanics were needed at home, so he worked at a garage that was designated under the selective service act as essential to the war effort.

As for me, I had no desire whatsoever to join the army or go to war, and when I was at an age to do so the only war going on was Vietnam. I was going to school in the U.S. at the time and everybody I knew was doing their best not to get drafted, the trick being to maintain your student exempt status.

Not all of them succeeded, and not all of them came back. Sometimes I feel as though I should have gone, because I’m so filled with admiration for those who did, whether it be the world wars, Vietnam, Afghanistan or any of the many fronts at which our country fights these days.

Those brave soldiers who were honoured and remembered yesterday deserve every tribute offered to them. But I admire my father not one bit less. He, too, served his country, in the best way he knew how, according to his principles. He, too, did a brave thing.

AROUND THE TOWN — Stopped in at the KCBIA office; manager Gay Pooler says the food truck pilot program will be getting off the ground soon… The parking-kiosk computer crash Wednesday was quite the schmozzle, another reminder that, more and more, our lives are being controlled by computers far away… And don’t even get me started about the mid-week crash that had my own Internet down for 24 hours…. I finally got a valid parking ticket from  the new downtown kiosk system; lost track of time and found the dreaded white slip under my wiper… Visited with some of the teachers on the picket lines again this week and they seemed a little less jolly than the week before.

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