right 'jab: Facing a warrior
Tejpal Swatch

My grade five teacher was a bit of an odd cookie. This would have been all right if he wasn't also a tyrant. His teaching style was akin to a drill sergeant's. We were to learn the material through mindless repetition, sometimes facilitated through the threat of laps. My elementary school was the only one in the city that had its own track. We became intimately familiar with that track through his stewardship. During quiet time, a dropped pencil or looking up at someone was 10 laps. Complaining about punishment was an extra 10 laps.

His idea of a gym class was a marathon - not floor hockey, basketball, or developing a skill in some sport. A death march around the neighbourhood that sometimes lasted an hour or two more than the allotted gym time. Our parents, some home from work, others homemakers, would stand outside in quiet vigil, silently urging their stumbling, panting, red-faced children forward.

This is when he hadn't devised a macabre obstacle course, something out of the training grounds of an army base somewhere.

One time he devised a course that gave our student teacher a permanent limp - she shattered her kneecap hurdling a stack of chairs that came at the end of a sprint across a teetering bench.

Most kids describe their gym class as Lord of the Flies. Mine was Full Metal Jacket.

I relate this story to you because I want you to understand why I still remember the things I learned in that class 15 years ago. Under the threat of physical exertion and plain old meanness, this man taught us the names of the bones in our skeletons, the muscle groups, the solar system, Euclidean geometry, Canadian history and 19th century literature. And boy, did we ever learn.

In this environment we committed - and still remember, I'm sure - two poems. The first was Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll. Like I said, an odd cookie. The second was Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

We learned the second poem because we were to recite it at the Remembrance Day assembly. The weeks before were dreadful. The teacher would call on, at random, anyone in the class to recite the poem. The student, standing up, would have the next minute to say the poem, with perfect pronunciation and enunciation, without mistake or face the prospect of laps.

The big day came and we were dressed semi-appropriately. I had a wool navy blue sweater, pleated pants and white dress shirt with the collars stylishly showing. The depth of mid-'80s fashion. On my sweater was a poppy, a symbol we were to cherish and respect. Of course, at lunchtime, childish revolution would call for us to turn the flower into lips, but the glare of our teacher kept us honest for now.

I remember the reading clearly. We quietly filed in, formed rows and stood an arm's length apart. While waiting for our cue, I surveyed the gym. I remember clearly catching the eye of an older gentleman, a veteran by the looks of it.

Being 10 years old, I was excited. There he was, a person who had actually been to war! Someone who had the privilege of holding and possibly firing a gun! Maybe he even drove a tank, or flew a plane. I was dumbfounded and transfixed, so much so I missed my cue. Damn! If my teacher saw me, it meant 10 laps. But I didn't care, there was a real, live soldier, right in front of me.

You have to understand I am a Sikh. War and combat is in our very blood. My ancestry, my prayers, includes the five beloveds, the 40 martyrs and any that have wielded a sword (of justice). I was told stories of Sri Guru Hargobind Sahib and Sri Guru Gobind Singh, saints who were also soldiers. My father told me stories of Hari Singh Nalawa, a giant, fierce warrior whose very sight sent a Mughal army to retreat.

I knew about war. Or I thought I did.

When we came to the line "We are the Dead," the soldier's chin dropped to his chest. As we recited the "dawn, the sunset glow" this man's shoulders began to shake, slightly. He was crying.

I couldn't believe it. A soldier, crying. He may have been the first adult I ever saw moved to tears, and he was a warrior.

That lunchtime, I didn't dismantle my poppy, fold it and make it into a set of lips. That evening, I asked my father if any Sikhs had died in all those battles. That day I became aware that war is never about the adventure, the thrill of combat or the heroism of men.

It was about the Dead, the ones that lived like you and I, that felt dawn and the sunset glow.

Please take a minute this November 11th to remember the fallen and the innocent.

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