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On this Remembrance Day, I remember the profound legacy of service that runs through my family.
My great-uncle, John McLeish, made the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War. He never came home.
Both my grandfathers served in both World Wars. In the Great War, they went overseas to fight. When the world was plunged into darkness again in 1939, they answered the call once more—this time training the next generation of soldiers who would cross the ocean to fight for freedom.
My father, Sergeant Robert McLeish, served overseas with the Royal Canadian Air Force. His brother, my uncle Alexander, fought with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. The newspaper clipping I've shared tells part of Alexander's story—wounded twice in the fight to liberate Europe. First, shrapnel from a German mortar bomb tore through his hand and elbow on the road to Falaise in August 1944. Then, in February 1945, a bullet wound to the scalp in Holland. He had already bled for freedom once. He bled again.
These weren't just names in a history book. These were fathers, sons, and brothers. They were young men from Toronto who left Westmoreland Ave. and Salem Ave. to face unimaginable horrors so that we might live in peace.
To my father, my uncle, and my grandfathers: thank you. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for the freedoms I enjoy every single day—freedoms that came at such a terrible cost to you and to so many others.
I know that too many of us take these privileges for granted. We live our comfortable lives without thinking about the young men and women who stood in muddy trenches, who flew through hostile skies, who stormed beaches and liberated towns. We forget that the peace we know was bought with blood, pain, lives lost and years stolen from families.
You deserved more than we've given you. You deserve our remembrance, our respect, and our commitment to never forget what you endured so that we might be free.
Today, I wear my poppy not just in remembrance, but in gratitude. We will remember them. We must remember them.
Lest we forget.
