My grandfather was a veteran who fought in the Battle of Dieppe. He was a commander in the raid. At the end of the war, he was taken as a prisoner of war.
Dieppe was an interesting one. Are there other battles that need to be brought forward? I think Canadians are pretty respectful of the battles we've served in as a country and that have brought us forward as a nation. Vimy Ridge was a defining moment. I don't think Vimy Ridge will ever be forgotten. April 9 has now been legislated as being Vimy Ridge Day across Canada.
I think as we move forward we not only have to be respectful of World War I and World War II battles, but we have to start looking at what happened to some of the people in the peacekeeping missions. We don't pay a lot of homage to peacekeeping at this stage in the game. Some of the areas they got into were combat in themselves. Of course, we were sending people in as unarmed observers who had no way to influence the outcome, and they saw a lot of different things. There have been a number of peacekeeping operations that, as we go down the road, I think we need to celebrate.
Our activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Croatia, were also key activities. As we transitioned from peacekeeping into the coalition types of operations, we went forward with our allies. There are all sorts of commemorative activities that need to be done to look at that.
We now have all those activities we've experienced in the last ten years in Afghanistan. There's a whole range of commemoration still to come. The issue is, down the road how do you do that? Do you go on pilgrimages to those countries again? Some of those governments may not be friendly towards Canadians coming back on pilgrimages in those countries. You have to be very careful where you go.
So there's a whole range of activities that are probably available to look at for the future.
I hope that answers your question.