That, again, is a powerful message--hearing it from you, Mr. Sweet--because that is one of the things that I think we have to constantly remind ourselves of the great sacrifice made by so many Canadians and of the act of remembrance.
I know in the speech I gave last week, when we were talking about the Juno Beach Centre—and it is sometimes hard to articulate this within 30 seconds or a minute and a half. One of the things that really troubles veterans who came back from these areas of conflict, and still come back, is why they safely returned home and their friend didn't: why did he die or she die and I'm still here? Sometimes there are these psychological issues that veterans deal with effectively internally, and for others, because the circumstances are more poignant, they're more real, more horrific, if you will, the internal processes they use to deal with that are not enough to get them through it.
One thing that every veteran wants, and more important, almost, at some levels than anything else, is this sense of remembrance—remembering the sacrifices made by their colleagues who never returned home. On this idea of remembrance, the department does a much better job today than they did many years ago when I was a student. They're doing a better job with the schools, in terms of that educational process, so that we as Canadians will always remember the sacrifices of those who came before and not take any of this for granted.
We sometimes maybe worry that we take democracy for granted, that we forget about the sacrifices that those young men and women have made in the past and are still making today. So that act of remembrance is something that I think the department does very well, and we never want to lose that. We have to continue to reinforce that sense of remembrance in the greater community, because, as you well know, none of us can do it ourselves. There has to be a sense that this is what we do as Canadians.
I think we're doing a much better job of that within Veterans Affairs than we did even that many, many years ago when I taught school, and even those more years ago, if you will, when I was a student. And of course, in today's international climate, I think it's even more important.