Early in my teaching career, I joined two colleagues on a summer-time trip to Europe to visit the battlegrounds and grave sites of the First and Second World War. This trip had a huge impact on me, both personally and professionally. At the time, I was new to teaching and despite a four-year history degree, my war knowledge was less than impressive. Driving in our rental car through the French and Belgian countryside changed everything for me. We stopped at countless Canadian war cemeteries, Vimy Ridge, Ypres, Dieppe and Normandy (among other battlegrounds) and spent hours in silence as we weaved our way through gravestones and memorials trying to imagine and comprehend all that had taken place so many years ago.