25 Replies to “Lest We Forget”

  4. But but, Canada was build by farting tap dancing goat herding Multi-Cults don’t you know. And don’t forget how the Mohawk warriors won world war 1 and 2 after all they are the main part of all Rembrance Day Ceremonies now. Hi How are yah, hi how are yah. Do you speak Trout?

  5. Found this at TheoSpark
    http:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbuyriepNk8
    Where is this picture of, Kate? Halifax?
    Semper Paratus

  6. RFB, let us forego our justfiable complaining for a couple of minutes while we set an example of how we ought to behave.

  7. Hi Tooner, my Justifiable Complaining was paid for in blood by my family as well as many others. At 11am. I will be respectfully silent as I would hope you will as well.

  8. Here locally there is a tradition of sorts for the local Harvard Club(based out of Tillsonburg) to do the “missing man” formation/fly past at 11:00 over the ceremonies at the Woodstock cenetaph.
    I have an excellant view of Woodstock, about 2 miles off the cenetaph…I have attended the ceremonies in the past but this year opted for a private observance…..to absent comrades….
    This year, the Harvards were a bit late…apparently they now do flypasts over Tillsonburg as well…..perhaps Ingersoll and Norwich….
    The Harvards are appropriate,,,,the thunder of 4 big radials being better than a crass roar of jets IMHO….style ya know…

  10. “Et dominabitur a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos terrae”
    RIP
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

  11. In my younger years I would hang out with the ‘old boys’ to hear their tales of war long ago. Met an old gent that was in the infantry in WW I. Came through Vimy Ridge with nary a scratch. Met another old gent who flew Sopwith Camels. He was shot down and landed inverted. Walked away with nary a scratch. Knew a man who found a lady’s hanky in the new Spitfire he was to take into battle. He kept that hanky as a good luck charm and was able to return it to the lady ferry pilot 30 years later. Met a man who had called in artillery fire on his own position when he was about to be over run at Ortona. I met a man who was captured at Dieppe and survived the ensuing death march. Yes on this day I do remember them. Brave men just doing their job.

  12. RFB, I was with you for those two minutes, and will be with you in reviling tomorrow those who forget. And if any of your family who served are still alive to hear it, please pass on my thanks to them for their part in keeping my parents, who were children in London during the 1940s, alive and free.

  13. My gratitude to those who gave their lives. My gratitude to their families for living their lives w/o their loved one(s).
    My gratitude to those who fought – and lived – and tried their best to live full lives with some very difficult memories. My gratitude to their loved ones for supporting them every day – no matter what that day brought.
    And finally, thanks to my Dad who came home from WWII a much different man – and did his best. He taught me gratitude.

  14. I went to the cemetary this morning to say hi and thanks to my father and uncle. Many of their friends lay beside them. They were never ones to talk about the war (WWII) much. That’s saying a lot since my uncle would argue over anything.
    I think the History channel has done a top notch job with their programing this year.

  15. No problem tooner, the latest vet in the family to pass on was my older cousin Carl. He joined the 1st Special Forces (Devils Brigade) at 16. Lied about his age. Fought in North Africa, Italy, and all through France. The Devils Brigade was disbanded he finished as a Sargeant and he joined the 1st Canadian Parchute Regiment in France and finished the WW2. He came home for a few years then joined the Black Watch and fought all the way through Korea, volunteering for 2 tours. He finished the Black Watch as Regimental Sgt. Major. He passed away in 2007. I recall my Great Uncle telling of WW1 and what it was like to go over the top. A tot of rum and the Piper, he said before you climbed out of the trench everyone was shaking and scared, but once you climbed up the ladder and started to run towards the enemy his blood run cold and it was kill or be killed. He never spoke of the War again. The latest member fought at the Gap in the former Yugoslavia with the PPCLI and suffered severe PTSD and no one in the family knows were he is right now. Same thing happened to an Uncle in the WW2, whatever happened he would not say, but wandered all over the USA and Canada we are still looking for him through the SA and Veterans Affairs, his 4 brothers, and him all signed up 3 days after the WW2 started and were in Italy and France. A very long history of military service in my family. I just helped my Grandson with a school project on the War of 1812, one of my GGGGrandparents fought at Cryslers Farm repelling the Americans, he was granted 200 acres of land by the King. Before that was the Indian Wars, The Revolutionary War and the US Civil War. They skipped the Boer War for some reason. Too much Viking/Scots and Irish blood I guess. Even to this day the sound of the War Pipes stops me in my tracks.

  16. Today, from Texas to Toronto, we all remember.
    One of the things that Texas remembers is that Canada, decent and honorable, has ever stood to defend our common civilization. (Even before 1815 in her efforts to refuse our gentle admonitions to join us out from under Mother Britain’s wing, Canada stood steady for civilized self-determination.)
    My father and his brothers were, most of them, “D-Day Dodgers” in sunny Italy who would go on to take the walking tour from the Rhone valley up into Germany. They, in turn, had uncles who had fought in the Argonne.
    The Canadians were there on the line, both times, while we were still pulling our boots on and waiting for the parasites on the Potomac to get their snouts out of the trough long enough to do their duty to civilization.
    We are surely humbled as much by the valor of our neighbors in Canada as by the duty done by our own heroes. It is not great numbers or great wealth but great hearts that make a brave country. Colonel Travis knew that and Texas still remembers.

  19. I just got home from leading a contingent in sleet at the local ceremony and then went to the hospital for a service with the now-resident veterans – and this 50 years after I got my wings! It took a wee dram to thaw me out. My grandfather died in the 1930s of WWI wounds and my father in the early 1960s of WWII wounds. I figure I did fairly well to survive 36 years in uniform and with only a couple of “minor wars”. Incidentally, I did learn that a minor skirmish is when someone else is shot at, a battle is when you’re on the receiving end. I was fortunate just be be tracked by SAMs, but they forgot to launch them.

  21. Hmmm… sasquatch — acknowledging your SW Ontario co-ordinates — Ingersoll, Norwich, Woodstock, Tillsonburg (Oxford County). Great work all the time!
    Remember also, if you would, the guys from Perth County — the first, I believe, to breach the Gothic Line. My dad’s two brothers were in the Perth Regiment at the time; my dad didn’t actually get to serve — too young — which has really bothered him ever since. Both of his brothers got home safely, fortunately, but he still jokes about getting his conscription order on May 1, 1945 (“Greetings from His Majesty, King George VI…”), which required him to show his face at Wolseley barracks in London on May 3, 1945, which he did, only to be told to go home, as he wasn’t needed: “I was in the Army for three days, and I have never been discharged.”
    I can’t really watch the Remembrance Day celebrations any more (which I tried to do today; my parents were watching CBC coverage from the National War Memorial), without crying. Growing up, it was all about the RCL and their livery, with the sterile green uniforms of the CAF (and Pierre in his top hat), as if it was a perfunctory, indifferent matter. To see all of the colourful uniforms (a bit of an oxymoron, I guess) today… and the Governor-General in a Royal Canadian Air Force uniform…says alot about what we have all suffered and gained.
    It really looked like Canada is supposed to look, and I’m quite relieved about all of that.

  22. As a former 20 year member of the navy I’ve had the privilege of marching with the Dominion Command Legion Colour Party here in Ottawa this year and last. What an honour indeed to lead the veterans onto the national centre stage.
    The sincerity of the crowds was apparent during the march past.
    Thank you.

  23. David Southam @8.21
    I became friends with the author of a book entitled “Not All of Us Were Brave” by Stan Scislowski who fought in Italy with the Perth Regt.
    I heartily recommend the book to you. He’s one of the truly great guys with whom you’d like to share some time.
    Of course, you will shed a tear in places but, like all the boys who fought in the real battles, he sees humour wherever he can.
    I honour the men who fought in the hell-hole that was Italy and, as usual, the Canadians were given the toughest places to fight the toughest soldiers Germany had. It was a disappointment, but only to be expected, that they were pulled out to rest while others marched proudly into Rome as the conquering heroes.

  25. Walter in Texas;
    ‘Parasites on the Pontamac’ is a bit harsh don’t you think?
    Roosevelt was giving serious aid to Britain thru Canada long before Pear Harbour. A significant portion of the USA population wanted nothing to do with another Euro conflict and I might have agreed with them. World communism was a reality that even the USA used their guns on in the ’20’s. Read the Hurst biography. When was the truth about Hitler really understood.
    A fascinating doc on the power struggle between Roosvelt, Churchill and Stalin. Churchill was manipulating Roosevelt in the N. Afica and Italian campaigns as he tried to keep Allied efforts there rather than a D-Day invasion. Was it an effort to retain Imperial Britain’s empire or an effort to direct a Balkans invasion to subvert Russian success in the East. Considering Churchill’s later ‘Iron Curtain’ sppech it was probably the latter.
    As a Canadian I do not condemn the late entry into the war that many take satisfaction in doing of Americans. In many ways Britain exerted imperial direction of her ‘colonies’ through the war. How high up did the real purpose of Dieppe raid actually go? Why not until Italy that Canada did not field a full army group?

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