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Thousands turn out for Remembrance Day |
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Written by Sherri Gallant LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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Wednesday, 11 November 2009 |
Thousands turned out Wednesday for Remembrance Day services in Lethbridge, giving credence to surveys released this week that report a growing national interest in the sombre occasion among all age groups.
One Lethbridge couple, George and Wilma McCrae, brought their five-year-old granddaughter Jadeyn Wiebe to the Cenotaph downtown. They were part of a huge crowd that filled the grounds on all sides of the monument, spilled off the sidewalks and assembled across the road along a two-block stretch.
“We were impressed because she came home from Kindergarten, talking about Remembrance Day,” said Wilma. “She brought it up. She told us it was about remembering soldiers who died, and that it was important for us to remember them. She was going on about it, so we thought we should bring her here so she could see what it was all about.”
The McCraes said they appreciate the way in which Remembrance Day services have grown to span a whole week. “It’s much better because there’s more time to tell the history, tell the sacrifices, and teach it in the schools,” said George.
Wilma’s father was a soldier in the Second World War whose stories run through her mind every year on Remembrance Day.
“He just passed away almost two years ago now. He would tell us incredible stories. He was captured, then he got away — he went through a tremendous ordeal. That’s what I thought about today, and I wish I could pass them on to Jadeyn the way he passed them on to us, but there’s no way that you can, because the way he told them, with such emotion — that’s gone.”
George, a former RCMP officer, thinks about the sacrifices made by police officers in war zones, as well.
“I just perchance this week was on the RCMP veteran’s website, and read a report from the Canadian police commander in Kandahar, and I worked with him in Surrey. I touched base with him, and he’s got some stories to tell about the security there. I know three or four members of the RCMP who were shot in the line of duty, so this goes through my head today, too.”
Returning this year as guest speaker for both city events was Major General Marc Terreau, retired, honorary colonel of the storied Lethbridge 429 Bison Squadron, of Trenton, Ont. Last year, the squadron brought with it the massive Globemaster III's Freedom of the Skies for a flyover, but the aircraft has been deployed to Afghanistan and the squadron is fully committed to operations.
While in Lethbridge this week, Terreau met up with Norah Hawn, who came to Canada as a war bride married to the late Dr. Bob Hawn, a pilot with 429 Squadron who flew 33 missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
“She gave me a certificate that the city of Toronto had given to 429 Squadron years and years ago,” Terreau said. “And I just finished doing a historical summary of the squadron and I didn’t know about this, so I have something new.
“The last reunion that her husband did with 6th Bomber group in the UK, they filmed it all, and she’s got the cassette and she gave it to me for the squadron records.”
While in the city Terreau took time to examine memorabilia collected by Glenn Miller, a member of the executive of the General Stewart branch, Lethbridge Legion, and retired member of the 18th Air Defence Regiment.
“I was blown away by this,” Terreau said. “I’ve been involved with the National Air Force Museum for a long long time and I saw things in those two albums that I’ve never seen before.”
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