Remembrance Day isn’t just one more Hallmark Holiday where we get a paid day off to do whatever we want.  Unfortunately most people look at it that way.

No, Remembrance Day is the day we set aside to remember and honour the brave men and women who gave their lives in the defense of our Rights and Freedoms; a day to honour those men and women who survived the horrors of war to come home and pick up where they left off.

So many people today believe they are entitled to everything.  The recent Occupy protests show this so clearly.

We are not born entitled to anything, other than, perhaps, to die. That’s about all we come into this world entitled to receive. Death.

Yet these protestors believe they are entitled to crap wherever they want, destroy the property of whoever they want, and receive money from the government for doing it.

Sorry kids, but that’s just not the way the world works.

Brave men and women have fought in numerous wars, conflicts and other “actions” to defend our Rights and Freedoms, not our overblown sense of entitlement to someone else’s bank account.

So, if your head is not stuffed too far up your behind today, step out of your home and your comfort zone, go to your local Remembrance Day Ceremony and do this one simple task:

Walk up to a single veteran and say “Thank You.”

That’s it.  Nothing outrageous or extravagant.

Just “Thank You.”

It’s hard for people to believe these days, I know, but that total stranger you will be thanking today believed it was their duty to protect YOUR rights and freedoms.

Thanking just one of them is the very least you can do, don’t you think?

Now, if you want to REALLY go out of your way, do the same thing tomorrow, and the day after.  Go to your local Legion Hall or anywhere else you can find an old veteran.

Thank them.

Buy them a coffee or a drink.

Buy them dinner.

Talk with them, or just sit in silence with them, whichever they prefer.

That’s what honouring someone is… doing whatever it is they would have you do for them.

It’s a far cry from the selfish whining crybabies strewing their garbage all over the Vancouver Art Gallery lawn, but then again, the Occupy movement isn’t about honouring anyone or anything.

It’s about entitlements.