Former student returns as soldier to St. Martha school
2nd Lieut. Jules Pankoski takes part in Remembrance Day ceremony
A former student at a local school returned as a soldier to help students learn about the importance of Remembrance Day.
Children of St. Martha Elementary School held their Remembrance Day ceremony on Wednesday. The event featured a special guest — 2nd Lieut. Jules Pankoski with the 20th Independent Field Battery based out of Lethbridge.
Pankoski, a former student at the school in the early 2000s, said the event was an excellent opportunity to connect with the community.
“Most Canadians, quite frankly, don’t get to see the Canadian Armed Forces in their day-to-day life due to bases only being in certain locations,” he said. “So the opportunity to come out to schools and visit with the children really brings to light what the Canadian Armed Forces do and why we have Remembrance Day each year.”
He said he had been looking forward to getting an opportunity to come back.
“Going to this school many years ago, it was great to see this being in their shoes. Now it’s the other way around. I’m hoping to inspire them about why it’s important to go to school.
“When I went to school, lots of times it was thought that veterans were those people who fought in World War One and Two. The reality today is that veterans today have fought in Bosnia and Croatia. They’ve fought in the Sudan. And recently Afghanistan.
“The veteran of today is not your older men and women. It’s people in their 30s and 40s. That’s definitely changed.”
Verna Mabin, a Grade 5 teacher at St. Martha, said the day features a Blackfoot component in an effort to be inclusive for the large number of Blackfoot students at the school.
She said the day is important in teaching children about the sacrifices made by previous generations.
“My grampa was a World War Two veteran, but now (we have) a generation whose grandparents weren’t in a war,” she said. “I think keeping those memories alive and being thankful for what we have is very important.”
She also spoke about the importance of trying to teach children the importance of the occasion while balancing the impact of war with the glamour of war seen in the media and in video games.
“In a game like ‘Call of Duty’, for example, it’s something that is very unreal,” she said. “It’s hard to balance between showing them extreme details of war, yet, at the same time, you want them to see what it was really like. I don’t think you can empathize with it if you don’t understand what it’s all about.
“But with news and social media, it’s so much easier to see those kinds of images. But we just keep reiterating that it’s a celebration to be thankful for what we have but we also have to have that sombre feel because it is a time of sadness, as well.”
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