Lest We Forget Analysis

While I have always held a deep respect and reverence for our servicemen and women, I briefly became disenchanted with the Lest We Forget project. I had been thinking more about an interesting project, than a meaningful one. Once I realized that it was more about the commemoration, the honouring of the memories of these men and women, I was able to delve more deeply into it. I remembered that in Grade 10 Canadian History, we had been shown photos and video of the 111th Overseas Battalion of South Waterloo departing from downtown Cambridge, and with that, I decided to switch my focus to my hometown of Preston (Cambridge,) ON.

My first time looking at the Online archives I found it difficult to decipher what was written in some cases- I’m not sure whether it would have been easier to handle the documents in person, but at any rate, I specifically chose John Francis McConnell largely based off legibility of his file. My connection to this young man was formed once I actually went through the file. I found we had common ground in age, overall appearance, height, and that he had lived within a ten minute walk of my own childhood home. I found there wasn’t a whole lot of offered …show more content…
It did provide an insight into maybe the experiences of a soldier’s family back home, but for the most part, as it was largely set in Calgary, rather than on the battlefront, it was decidedly unhelpful. Beyond this, it was quite cinematic and unreal, I found. Close to the end when the main character Michael sets out to look after David, and what happens to him, I did find myself wondering if this kind of dedication was quite rare, and to what extent brotherhoods were formed in the trenches. Because John, the soldier I had chosen to commemorate passed on the battlefield and there was little mention of him, I wondered whether he had had close friends like that, as