Memories of war
Columnist asks readers how they will remember on Nov. 11
The 11th hour, the 11th day of the 11th month is coming around again. What are your memories? How will you remember?
My first childhood memory would be over 50 years ago. It wouldn’t be “that drunken Ira Hayes” we’ve heard of in songs, but it would be an eccentric old veteran who roamed our neighborhood in Mira Gut. Ira Dillon used to come to our farm as a handyman, working for meals, but had this idea in his ‘shellshocked’ brain that he was going to marry my little sister.
Had I known enough, that might have been my first exposure to “PTSD.” So many years ago, and yet we still have soldiers coming back from wars and killing their wife, child, and mother-in-law and ultimately themselves. What is wrong with this picture? Why have we not learned from our history?
Will you be one of the full house and standing room only crowd respectfully commemorating at the Savoy Theatre? Will you be one of the 3,500 plus people listening to Romeo Daillard recounting his experiences in Rwanda where 800,000 people were massacred? He will address an audience at the Centre 200 in Sydney on November 11. His books have helped greatly in bringing PTSD to the forefront.
Were you one of only four people at the Glace Bay Library to hear a wonderfully informative presentation by Leonard Boudreau about the Cape Breton Highlanders?
Called various names, “the men with skirts” by German counterparts, “highlanders without kilts” or “Never Fails,” their own Gaelic motto is translated, “Breed of Manly Men.”
He will repeat at the Glace Bay Historic Society meeting on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. Also, he asked me to publicize that he had received an email from a lady in Sussex, England, who found old letters while renovating, addressed to Pte. Ross MacMillan, Bravo Co. of the Glace Bay Highlanders in January 1943.
Anyone with information, contact Mr. Boudreau at 902304-4463. His mission is to have these letters returned home.
Were you one of the approximately 50 people attending a Cape Breton University talk by four professors who shared their grandfather’s experiences from the Great War? Members of the audience also shared more stories.
War is not one collective experience with every one’s memories the same. It is a group of very individualized stories. When I took history in high school, it was wars and treaties and the stories of the victors. Certainly the time has arrived for this to change. All stories matter, not just those of the winners. My grandfather didn’t go to war because he was part of the necessary workers making steel at the steel plant at the time.
Next year will be the 100th
Anniversary of the end of the “Great War,” or the “War to End All Wars,” as it’s been called. But we all know, when there’s a conflict, war often follows. Thanks to former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, we are now involved in peacekeeping missions. Since 1956, more than100,000 soldiers have participated in some 35 plus missions.
Recently, I was honored to participate in a “land art installation” project from West Flanders in Belgium. Six hundred thousand sculptures were created to place on a 10 acre site, “one of the most hard-won places of WWI, the no man’s land of the frontline around Ypres,” to commemorate those fallen men who died in Belgium alone during the First World War. Of that number, 550,000 clay sculptures had been made in Europe and they were commissioned to bring the clay to Citadel Hill in Halifax in September for Canadians to participate.
We received a passport and dogtags, and similar dogtags will be placed on the sculpture they place with our names denoting “different generations and nationalities … united in commemoration …,” making us their godfathers/mothers and to help children still trapped in war situations. “Coming World Remember Me” is a cross-border, cross-generational symbol of peace.
Have you been to Fort Petrie in New Victoria? Now a military museum, it was built in 1939 to protect the Sydney Harbour against German invasion. Great convoys and merchant ships sailed out of Sydney to Great Britain, the largest of which was 72 ships on November 10, 1941. I’d never heard of the “Battle of the Atlantic,” but you can find out about this and much more at Fort Petrie.
Were you one of the people who respectfully lined our very own “Highway of Heroes” when fallen soldier, Sargent James MacNeil’s body was returned from his third brave tour of duty in Afghanistan? Or for the younger people, remember him and his service when you play sports in the field named in his honor at OVEC.
Visiting the war section of Halifax Citadel, I didn’t see J.B. Croak with other Victoria Cross recipients. Asking the commissionaire, he didn’t know the name. But a woman behind me, pointed out his name and medals in another display. Apparently, his are the only authentic medals on display at the site.
These fallen men and women are no longer here to tell their stories, but as with all history, if we don’t know it, we are doomed to repeat it. Please don’t let this happen. Remember and be reminded of the uselessness of war “yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
Out of pride, respect, and appreciation, remember to wear your poppy and say, “thank you for your service.”