Re: Remembrance Day

by Ironman Sat 19 Oct 2019, 1:27 pm

Calgary high schoolers help prepare for Remembrance Day installation

10.19.2019

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-high-schoolers-help-prepare-for-remembrance-day-installation-1.4645986

by Stealth Sun 27 Oct 2019, 10:25 am

Sudbury boasts Poppy Campaign flag

27.10.2019

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/sudbury-boasts-poppy-campaign-flag-1.4656939

by Jackson Mon 28 Oct 2019, 4:42 pm

Commemorative pins to honour veterans and their animals

Available at the Ontario SPCA Barrie Animal Centre, $1 from each pin sold is donated to the Royal Canadian Legion to support local veterans

BarrieToday Staff . Oct 28, 2019

NEWS RELEASE
ONTARIO SPCA
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The Ontario SPCA and Humane Society has issued two new commemorative pins leading up to Remembrance Day to honour the wartime contributions of Canada’s veterans and the animals who stood bravely by their side.

The Animals in War commemorative pins were launched by the Ontario SPCA in 2017, with a new design unveiled each year since. Available at the Ontario SPCA Barrie Animal Centre, $1 from each pin sold is donated to the Royal Canadian Legion to support local veterans.

This year, two new unique pins have been launched. In honour of women in Canada’s military and the animals who have served by their side, a new limited edition commemorative pin is now available. A second pin featuring a dog represents the sacrifice of all animals who served in war. The new designs join the inaugural first edition pin showcasing a horse, which is still available.

The Ontario SPCA will also be recognizing Canada’s veterans and the wartime contributions of animals with a wreath placed during the National Remembrance Day Ceremony in Ottawa on Nov. 11.

“We will always remember the bravery of Canada’s veterans and the animals who stood courageously by their side,” says Crystal Anderson, Community Development Coordinator, Barrie Animal Centre. “This year we are celebrating the women who served in Canada’s military with a new pin honouring their contributions. So many have endured so much and we will never forget their sacrifice.”

A variety of animals have served in wartime. Mules carried artillery, horses transported troops and hauled field guns, pigeons delivered crucial messages and dogs served as messengers, medical assistants, bomb detectors and search and rescue workers.

The Animals in War pins are available online at pawsandgive.ca/remember or at the Ontario SPCA Barrie Animal Centre, located at 91 Patterson Rd Barrie, ON.

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BarrieToday

by Magnum Tue 29 Oct 2019, 5:48 pm

Thief caught on camera stealing a poppy box

10.29.2019

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/thief-caught-on-camera-stealing-a-poppy-box-1.4660386

by Phantom Thu 31 Oct 2019, 8:24 am

Veterans blast decision to drop prayer from Remembrance Day ceremony at C.B. school

Brent Kelloway · CBC News · Posted: Oct 30, 2019

Remembrance Day - Page 7 Clarence-dawe-and-mel-birminghan

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/prayer-removed-remembrance-day-jubilee-elementary-school-1.5341641

by Maverick Thu 31 Oct 2019, 8:04 pm

Remembrance Day | jour du Souvenir

Oct 31, 2019

Historica Canada

Our speakers explain what Remembrance Day means to them. For more information about the veteran and active members of the Canadian Forces featured in this video, order our Record of Service DVD: http://www.thememoryproject.com/educa...

Nos orateurs expliquent l'importance du jour du Souvenir pour eux. Pour plus d'informations sur le service des vétérans et membres actifs des Forces canadiennes présentés dans la vidéo, commandez notre DVD États de service : http://www.leprojetmemoire.com/ressou...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9HGx4p23eM

by Maxstar Fri 01 Nov 2019, 9:21 am

Military family matriarch named 2019 Silver Cross mother

Published Friday, November 1, 2019

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/military-family-matriarch-named-2019-silver-cross-mother-1.4665713

by Saulman Fri 01 Nov 2019, 9:41 pm

'Humbling': U.K. teen's emotional Remembrance Day poem goes viral
A U.K. high schooler will be reading a poem he wrote for Remembrance Day at a Royal Air Force parade after it went viral online, catching the international attention of veterans groups and even the office of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Friday, Nov. 1, 2019

https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.4666213.1572625924!/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.png

by Saulman Fri 01 Nov 2019, 9:43 pm

The respectful way to wear a poppy for Remembrance Day
While most Canadians know the significance of wearing a poppy to honour veterans during the lead-up to Remembrance Day, they may not realize there is, in fact, an appropriate way to wear the pin. Here’s how to wear a poppy respectfully this year.

Friday, Nov. 1, 2019

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/the-respectful-way-to-wear-a-poppy-for-remembrance-day-1.4666327

by Saulman Fri 01 Nov 2019, 9:44 pm

Vancouver letting veterans park for free ahead of Remembrance Day

01.11.2019

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-letting-veterans-park-for-free-ahead-of-remembrance-day-1.4666656

by Jackal Sat 02 Nov 2019, 11:36 am

Remembrance Day tribute shifts focus to Afghanistan vets

“That fight has been over for several years now, but that doesn’t mean that the personal strife of our troops is over," says a video in one of the RMR Museum exhibition.

Bill Brownstein • Montreal Gazette . Published Nov 02, 2019

War is always hell. Yet many Canadians only associate the grim realities of battle with the First and Second World Wars as well as the Korean War.

Too often overlooked is the effect on our soldiers of more recent combat, like the conflict in Afghanistan.

On that note, the Royal Montreal Regiment’s RMR Museum has shifted focus from more traditional Remembrance Day tributes by presenting Remembering Afghanistan: Reflections of Canadian Soldiers. This exhibit not only provides a series of timelines, photos and artifacts detailing Canadian involvement but also offers gripping video commentary from 12 soldiers who served there.

Unbeknown to many, the conflict in Afghanistan was the longest in Canadian military history, running from 2001 to 2014. Close to 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces served in the region — Canada’s largest deployment of troops since the Second World War — with just under 160 of our soldiers killed in battle there and several thousand more sustaining a variety of injuries.

But as Colin Robinson, the RMR’s Honourary Col., is quick to point out: Many thousands more returned from Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with some taking their own lives as a consequence.

“Most may be unaware, but the figure is shocking,” Robinson says. “According to statistics, 20 to 25 per cent of troops deployed come back with post-traumatic stress disorder.”

He also notes that prior to 9/11, few Canadians, soldiers or civilians, knew much about Afghanistan or the Taliban, but that awareness was to change dramatically.

“Because it’s relatively recent, the impact of this conflict is still in motion and we lack the historical perspective that we have on other chapters of Canadian military history,” Robinson says. “But we want to advance a conversation we should be having — regardless of one’s position on Afghanistan. We also want people to understand sacrifices made by our younger vets, which tend to get lost in Remembrance Day ceremonies and tributes.”

In the exhibit, this video commentary from RMR Second-Lt. Justin Pulliam-Therrien hits home: “That fight has been over for several years now, but that doesn’t mean that the personal strife of our troops is over. I know that many of our service members returned from their (Afghanistan) deployments with traumatic stress — stress that they still fight to cope with this day.”

Perhaps making matters even more stressful for troops was the opposition in Quebec to their participation in the conflict, at one point reaching a staggering 77 per cent.

Initially, Canadian Forces were largely stationed around Kabul to help stabilize the regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. A few years later, they moved on to Kandahar to provide training and security in dealing with the rapidly regrouping Taliban.

RMR Capt. Alan Vincent still has vivid memories of having spent much of 2009 in Afghanistan as a member of the Kandahar provincial reconstruction team and civilian-military co-operation platoon.

“I was one of the fortunate ones who wasn’t shot at while I was there,” says the native Montrealer, 43, who is taking in the exhibit. “But I have many friends who were shot at and I did cross paths with some who were killed in action.

“To be certain, things that happened to us over there really mark people. I have friends still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But it’s not just Afghanistan. I have friends who served with me in Bosnia in 1999 who were just as messed up.”

Vincent, currently attached to the 34th Brigade in Longue-Pointe, came away with new appreciation for life here: “To say that Afghanistan was a real eye-opening experience is quite the understatement. It makes you realize how fortunate we are here and all that we take for granted. But I’m also proud to say that we did save lives while there.”

As Vincent strolls through the exhibit, featuring everything from a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) to a metal detector, he comes upon a primitive-looking IED and ever so matter-of-factly recalls one horrifying experience during a night patrol.

“We saw some (Taliban) digging, so we assumed it was IEDs. They ran off as we approached. While we waited for the demolition experts, this security guy looked at me weirdly. After bringing the explosives-sniffing dogs over, it turned out I was standing on an IED. Fortunately, there was no detonator attached, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I would have been blown sky high,” a shrugging Vincent says. “It was a fairly traumatic experience.”

AT A GLANCE

Remembering Afghanistan: Reflections of Canadian Soldiers runs until Nov. 10 at the Royal Montreal Regiment, 4625 Ste-Catherine St. W. Admission is free. More info at royalmontrealregiment.com/museum.

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/billbrownstein

WINDSOR STAR

by **Colter** Sat 02 Nov 2019, 1:25 pm

Project honours Alberta veterans with roadside memorial banners

11.02.2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-veterans-rememberance-day-didsbury-1.5344294

Remembrance Day - Page 7 Didsbury-veterans

by Wolverine Mon 04 Nov 2019, 5:05 pm

'No Stone Left Alone': Students honour Canadian veterans

Published Monday, November 4, 2019

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/no-stone-left-alone-students-honour-canadian-veterans-1.4668933

by Thunder Tue 05 Nov 2019, 1:36 pm

Remembrance Day should be a national holiday

There is something beautiful in stopping work at 11 a.m. and standing at our desks in silence. But we can do better.

By Maclean's . November 5, 2019

The most moving sound at Remembrance Day ceremonies, to our minds, is not the long-held mournful note of the Last Post—hauntingly beautiful though it is. Nor is it the scorching sound of the flypast as the planes thunder overhead, tearing through the silence.

The sound that moves the soul, always, is the muffled clap-clap-clap of mittened hands as the parade of veterans streams by. At outdoor ceremonies held at cenotaphs on November 11 across the country, we hear sustained applause for fewer veterans every year—no WWI vets remain, of course, and there are fewer WWII vets every time.

Remembrance Day has morphed since it came into being following the end of World War I, when it was called Armistice Day and combined with Thanksgiving. In the 1920s, a lobby pushed for Thanksgiving to be moved so a commemoration of remembrance could stand on its own. In 1931, November 11 was named Remembrance Day.

Since then, observation has ebbed and flowed. The National War Museum notes a sustained public interest in Remembrance Day ceremonies since 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The annual ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa is attended by tens of thousands, many laying their poppies on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier afterwards, turning the tomb red. Watching the crowd surge forward in that moment to add their poppies, it is tempting to think all is well with remembrance in the country. But as with everything from pipelines to carbon taxes, a patchwork of policy and regional interests exists even here.

While federal employees have the day off, provinces and territories determine their own statutory holidays—currently, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Manitoba do not designate Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday, although Nova Scotia and Manitoba have enacted observance legislation that provides for some protocols. Schools are in or out, depending on the jurisdiction.

The Royal Canadian Legion is against declaring Remembrance Day a statutory holiday, arguing that children who would have participated in a ceremony at school may not have the chance. “Over time, the holiday side of the day may overtake the meaning of the day, and the tradition of pausing in our daily routine to observe a moment of silence for Fallen Veterans may be lost,” the Legion said in a brief to Parliament.

Canadians disagree. This year, a Historica Canada poll found 90 per cent of Canadians support November 11 being a national statutory holiday. (Eighty-eight per cent agreed it is important to attend Remembrance Day ceremonies while there are still World War II veterans present.*)

On a recent afternoon at Sunnybrook’s Veterans Centre in Toronto (average age, 96), we took the question to veterans during a quiet moment before the afternoon’s entertainment started up with Sweet Caroline.

John Ferris, 94, wants a public holiday so families can attend memorials together. A sergeant in the Air Force in World War II, he attended Remembrance Day ceremonies as a boy with his father at Toronto’s city hall, and with his father again at 21, as a veteran himself, with “somewhat more of an understanding of war’s costs.”

Richard Ratcliffe, 91, wants a public holiday, too. The president of the residents’ council at Sunnybrook and a Navy lieutenant in Korea, he remembers being “up on the bridge in February, cold, nasty, snowing. You wonder: Does anyone back in Canada care that you’re out here?” He doesn’t buy the arguments against a holiday. “It’s an expression of a Canadian drive to be one; it shouldn’t be sectionalized province by province.”

Though there is indeed something beautiful in stopping work at 11 a.m. and standing at our desks in silence, we can do better.

We need to stand together instead, at the thousands of cenotaphs and memorials that dot this country, lean in against the blustery wind and nestle the children beside us for two minutes of silence. We need to do it in all provinces and territories. These dangerous times require nothing less.

Maclean's

by Firestrike Tue 05 Nov 2019, 5:03 pm

Veterans Affairs Canada - Nov 5. 2019

Today is the first day of Veterans’ Week. How will you remember those who have served our country? #CanadaRemembers
Veterans’ Week is marked each year from November 5 to 11.

Culminating with two minutes of silence at 11:00 a.m. on November 11 – Remembrance Day – it is a chance to express our everlasting gratitude for the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform over the years. Pictured are a Royal Canadian Air Force member and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer standing vigil during a Remembrance Day ceremony in Wainwright, Alberta in 2017.

Remembrance Day & Veterans' Week

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