It is the 11th day of the 11th month. Our thoughts are turned to veterans of all wars.
As I write this on Wednesday, the outgoing Ombudsman for Veterans Affairs, retired colonel Pat Stogran, is being interviewed on TV. He's not happy. In fact it's clear that he has engaged in a long and wearying battle with the current government. He wanted clear commitments to helping injured veterans and their families. In his time on the job, he essentially accused government officials and bureaucrats of letting veterans down. Stogran became a thorn in the side of a minority government that, at least publicly, has made a fetish of ostentatiously supporting the military.
Recently, changes have been made to benefit veterans, and yet the whiff of tokenism hangs over the issue. Too little, too late. Changes were made to ensure no embarrassment today, Remembrance Day.
That's the problem when politicians and others with a political agenda take over the perception of Remembrance Day. The profound meaning of the day recedes in a sour fog. It becomes difficult to get close to the meaning of military service and all the ramifications of serving your country in countless ways other than fighting a war.
Outside the Wire (W Network, 11 a.m.) is an exception to the often tortured programs aired on this day. It's a straightforward production made by independent documentarian Alison McLean, a former TSN camera operator who essentially operates as a one-woman crew - it's just her and her camera. Her previous work was a program about women serving in the Second World War, and that, apparently, compelled her to look at women serving in Afghanistan. Hence the airing on the W Network, one assumes. It's a pity it's not airing in prime time, but at least it is being shown.
This doc is definitely and admirably no-frills. MacLean points her camera at various women and they talk about their jobs. She talks to both women working within the Canadian military and American women who are there working with Medevac. The questions concern two issues - why the women are in Afghanistan, and what they think the mission will accomplish.
Many of the women explain that Afghanistan, for all its dangers, was an attractive challenge for a person wanting a military career. MacLean herself mentions "the legacy of care" that women bring to the mission, and that includes everyone from those women who take care of wounded soldiers and Afghans, to women who sit at computers trying to make sure that the logistics of operations are mistake-free.
It's notable that there is little in the way of bragging or studied blitheness to the dangers of a combat mission. The women talk with a down-to-earth honesty about their jobs. They are also generous toward the Afghan people. "We hear on TV about so many bad things, but there are a lot of good people out there," one woman says.
Canada Remembers: Women Who Have Served and Sacrificed (Vision, 10 p.m.) is another remembrance program with a focus on women. It acknowledges that, while women serving in combat as front-line soldiers is a relatively new development, those women who toiled and sacrificed during the Second World War must be honoured over and over. Hosted by a former Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, Dr. Lynda Haverstock, it's a poignant program that rightly reminds viewers of the layers of emotion that are experienced by everyone in uniform who serves in wartime.
Television's role on Remembrance Day is to help us pause and remember. It's an important role because the horrors of war have been captured on film since the First World War. What happens this Nov. 11 resonates, but the resonance decreases without the visual reminder. Old men march and every year there are fewer of them. Remembrance Day is about never forgetting the lost, the wounded and the survivors.
Remembrance is harder now. With the conflict in Afghanistan continuing, the meaning of Remembrance Day gets all tangled up with politics, with the need for the perception of our military to be enhanced. Today's TV menu presents numerous perspectives, and that's as it should be. It is vastly improved by the presence of women who do not see themselves as warriors, but as part of that "legacy of care," and on this, of all days, Canada's history in that is worth remembering.
Check local listings.