Public service is more challenging than you think

Opinion. The views expressed are the author’s own.

We have just marked Remembrance Day, honouring our collective history as well as our family traditions. Entire families have made a tradition of joining the Armed Forces to serve their country, much as service runs in the blood of firefighters and police officers. Service above all else. For family, community and nation, they marched into conflicts that our national pride never created, called upon in alliance with friends against foes.

Our forefathers fought around the world, often trying to figure out why they were there, often injured or dying in places that were not ours, not our homeland. For peace, perhaps. We have been told time and again that global war will not happen again. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain promised the world “peace for our time.” A year later, the Second World War began. Never again, said the optimists. The First World War was seen as an apocalypse that wiped out an entire generation. The Second World War brought the world organized mass genocide of Jews, Roma, people with disabilities and others the Nazi regime deemed inferior. The idea that one race or nationality is superior to another has been with us for as long as history has been recorded, yet the “Final Solution” was so horrific that even Genghis Khan, the scourge of nations, would be rolling in his grave. Our soldiers were there to fight the good fight, and many thousands died. These soldiers were public servants, paid by the government to defend our honour and our people.

Today we have similar heroes who live in our neighbourhoods and raise their families with pride. They are the essential workers, the police officers and firefighters who put themselves on the line for you and me every day. They are privileged to serve their communities and their nation, but they are often taken for granted, overlooked by a society too busy to notice and acknowledge its true everyday heroes.

Celebrate those who serve others, not just because it is their profession, but because their empathy and care build our communities and our shared fellowship. Dare I say it, that includes our elected officials and government bodies, the ones we are glad to know and the ones we would rather not meet, police included. Let us see ourselves in those who serve, and perhaps offer ourselves selflessly to help those in need.

Steven Kaszab lives in Bradford, Ontario.

Editor’s note: this column has been edited for length and clarity.