This is not about marketing

This blog has been quiet of late as my family took a break to tour London, Belgium and France.

Who could ask for a better tonic to a hectic lifestyle than two weeks in Europe?

With the surprisingly good weather and the wonderful hospitality heaped on us by our Belgian hosts in Ghent, the economic crisis and the gyrating stockmarkets seemed far away.

However, a greater sense of perspective was realized gazing out to these broad expanses: the above photo was taken in Normandy, France and the one below, near Ypres in Belgium.


The picture in Normandy is of Juno beach where the Canadians landed on D-Day. This beach was the most heavily fortified of all D-Day beaches. Similar to the Americans at Omaha Beach, the casualty rate approximated 50%.

The second picture looks out to the fields of Passchendaele, where one of the most horrific battles of World War I took place with over 500,000 dead including 16,000 Canadians.

The horrors of these two wars are difficult to fathom from North America, let alone from standing in these battlefields reclaimed by Mother Earth.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who suffered and those who gave their lives to preserve our freedom.

Lest we forget their sacrifices.

(For more photos, see my Flickr posts).