A hundred years ago to this morning: I can’t imagine what my grandfather was thinking. At 39 he would have had to wonder if lying about his age was a good idea. After being shot through the arm, gassed and buried alive twice from shell blasts in the previous two years, he was about to attack Vimy Ridge.

I was at an event last weekend to honour the sacrifice at Vimy Ridge. At our table of 10, eight of our lives were on the line that day, the other two at the table children’s lives were on the line that day. That event didn’t glorify war; it acknowledged the sacrifice that many on this thread so heartlessly have tried to diminish.