And each year now, on November 11, CPR stops every one of its 250 trains across the North American network, at 11 a.m., for two minutes of silence to pay tribute to the thousands of North Americans who have served their countries in war. The silence is followed by one long whistle blast from each train as a Remembrance Day and Veterans’ Day tribute to the memory of fallen soldiers. This CPR practice harkens back to 1915.
Here is some more history on the C.P.R. and its roll in times of conflict.
Armistice Day is also commemorated here in New Zealand with 2 minutes silence at 1100 hours on 11/11, but our national holiday of remembrance is 25 April, the day of the Gallipoli landings back in 1915.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Brent: I don’t want to rain on anyone, but the two minutes of silence as a salute to veterans was requested by the king of Endland in 1919. The whole British Empire, as it was then, honoured this request.
To all our Veterns past and present of all Alied forces, I thankyou and am eternally grateful to you for your Service to the Freedom of our lands that we have enjoyed in our lives.
I pray that this will remain to be, but I am very concerned about what is happeneing in Europe right now and being transferred much to quickly to our side of the Great Pond.
God bless North America, Europe, N.Z. and Australia. May we be blessed with the Wisdom and Leadership that we need to handle this situation in the best possible and safest way and keep the integraty of our Homelands as safe havens for all of us.
But Especially bless and be with our Troops wherever in the World they are serving.
Because you gave I could live my life with out having to go to war. My relatives have fought in the Revolutionary war with Washington, The Civil war at Vicksburg, WW2 in the air over Europe, In bombers over Hanoi…not all came home.
Again thank and your families for their sacrifice. We do appreciate it.
I lost a great great great uncle in Italy, he fought in WWI. My great grandfather was in the CB’s in the mid 1950’s. His brothers were in the Navy, served on destroyers. My great uncle was killed in France on August 26 (I believe), 1944. He saved his platoon, and was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, yet deserved higher recognition. His name was Charles Kémeny. His brother did garrison in Germany during Vietnam, freed up troops to fight there. To them, I salute.
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks nothing is worth a war is worse. A man who has nothing worth fighting for, who cares about nothing more than he does about his personal safety, can never be free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” -John Stuart Mill
I had two grandfathers with entirely opposing views on the subject. One was a conscientious objector and fought in neither war. He also attended every Christian church for lengthy periods in his adult life to learn as much as he could about them. He was a serious student of the Bible and spent 75 years in the same church choir. The other grandfather was with the Black Watch during WW I and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palmares by the grateful French for his role in one battle. He was in the RCAF during WW II, but now in his fifties. He served as an electronics officer. He found tiny bits of shrapnel in his forearms, belly, and legs years after WW I when he was bathing. The wash cloth would snag on the sharp tips working their way outward through his skin.
-Crandell (30 year veteran, Cyprus 79/80, Bosnia 2001)
