When I was young, my parents would drag me in the early morning on November 11th to the Legion, where we would sit for the Remembrance Day ceremony. At the beginning of the service, they would dim the lights and play a soundtrack of a battle. You’d hear the bombing, the whistle of incoming fire, the yelling of orders and the screams of pain. As a child it was both sobering and terrifying. As I grew I felt like I understood. I respected and appreciated the battles that had been fought for my freedom. I couldn’t have known then that I would marry a man who would deploy over and over to his own generation’s war. But I certainly felt that I grasped as best a civilian can, the reality that those before had fought and died for eveything I took for granted here. But that understanding, it felt far removed from any real life person. Though I had 3 grandparents who enlisted and served during WWII, I didn’t really connect who they were with what I knew had been experienced. I definately never equated a war veteran with the man who told us jokes, bounced us on his knee and stuck out his teeth at us. This is my Poppa. He was born in Montreal to British immigrants on May 31st, 1920. At age 15 he got a job with United Shoe Machinery. He worked there for 46 years, volunteering to take 4 years off in 1941 to go fight as a Gunner for the Allies in WWII. As a child it was hard to see my Poppa as a veteran. But this week as I prepared his memorial service, I spent my evenings reading histories of his war and his…