The annual rituals of remembering cast minds in the direction of war, misery, tyranny, fear and sacrifice. National monuments dedicated to the memory of those who fought on violently implacable battlefields and fell while defending our liberties and our freedom suddenly come alive with grave and emotion-laden pomp and ceremony.

Those national cenotaphs bring alive for many families the long-ago memories handed down from generation to generation of grandfathers, fathers, brothers and siblings lost to far-off conflicts whose threat of conquest by tyrannical forces overrunning the defences of our allies brought us into the fray. Early in the day the crowds begin to assemble, to witness in person the day's remembrance ceremonies unfolding.

Uniformed military personnel, both acting and retired, the young and the old proudly stand at attention, for this is their day of acknowledgement and recognition of what they accomplish on our behalf, our first line of defence against the seemingly never-ending threat that some fascist dictator's aspiration of global conquest will succeed.

There is the appearance of the head of state, the head of government, the mother of the year among the many whose sons and daughters succumbed to the ultimate sacrifice. And there is the laying of wreaths at the base of the monument. Crowds of silent onlookers circle the theatre of the ceremony, within which sits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And it is upon that tomb that as they depart, people will approach and respectfully leave their poppies.

We gather in support of peace, in the memory of war. In the reluctant conclusion that to obtain peace sometimes war must be fought. The countless dead that war brings, the agony and the anguish of the wounded, the survivors, the destroyed towns and cities and farms and factories level and lay waste to our consideration of ourselves as civilized.

Among the aged veterans gathered, rheumy, watery eyes set in parchment-thin wrinkles topped with wispy white hair below which are pinned wartime medals on the now-thin chests of those who display them. Their valiant efforts to ensure that liberty continues to rule our lives earn them a veneration of regard from the generations following their own.

Many look befuddled, confused, weary and above all tormented by memory. It is a memory they cannot share with those who have not experienced what they did. But we do our best to memorialize them.