Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?”
-
Lyrics from a song by the late folksinger and peace activist Pete Seeger
A Brief Remembrance Day commentary by Doug Draper
Posted November 10th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
They are all gone now.
All of the Second World War veterans I was nonoured to know – those who were so rightfully described more than two and a half decades ago, in a best-selling book by journalist Tom Brokaw, as members of “the greatest generation”– are gone to graveyards now.
They are no longer here during the week or so leading up to Remembrance Day – standing there with such majesty, in front of an LCBO or grocery store, pinning a poppy on our lapel after we dropped a toonie or two in the box they were holding.
And they are no longer here to talk to who ever cared to listen about the horrors of war and how so much many of them felt that war could have been prevented if leaders on all sides showed the wisdom and passion to find ways of resolving differences that did not wipe out so many lives.
I remember peace rallies I attended in public parks in Niagara, going back some 20 years ago to the War in Iraq or earlier than that, to the American military actions that were slaughtering so many people in Vietnam, some of those who went to the microphone during those rallies and spoke with such power and eloquence against war were Second World War veterans
A monument to those who fought and died in the First and Second World Wars, located near my childhood home in Chippawa Park in Welland, Ontario – a monument my childhood friends and I always found haunting as we approached and read the names carved into it of those who died .in those wars. photo by Doug Draper
On the eve of this Remembrance Day, 2025, as we prepare to observe a moment of silence or gather around a cenotaph in our community to honour those who sacrificed their lives in previous wars, I wish those voices were still around – especially at a time when we have a tin-pot dictator to the south of us, recklessly exercising military might even as he is marketing himself as the best candidate in the world for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Where are those voices at a time when we have a Canadians government prepared to spend more than $80 billion over the next five years – money that could be spend on health care, affordable housing and green technology – on military weaponry, all in an effort to appease that tyrant to the south.
On this Remembrance Day, as I observe a moment of silence, I will be thinking of those brave voices and wishing so much that they were still here.
I hope that where ever you are on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of this November 2025, that you will join me.
To hear what I believe is one of the most powerful anti-war songs, this one written by Bob Dylan, that I have heard over the past 50 or more years, click on the screen immediately below –
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