I suppose that the soldiers we think about today had honourable and very black and white reasons for doing what they did. I wish I could say the same. The background politics was part of the reason for my disillusionment. I won’t divulge exact details, but I first saw action in a UN role. It was not a quiet place for us. I thought a few years later that I could seek my “fortune” if you catch my drift, and became involved in a civil war half way around the world that I should have gone nowhere near. A couple of my friends went too. We were hired, so to speak. I was lucky. I came home and went on to a very different life. Now and then I remember faces, and moments in time from the past. I remember looking into the eyes of a man bleeding to death in the dirt in a country he was sure he was protecting. A man whose death I caused. Forgive my cynicism surrounding Remembrance Day, and my opinion of Don Cherry’s ill informed comments. He can’t possibly know why I don’t wear a poppy.