For some Canadians Remembrance Day is just a holiday. It has been nearly 100 years since the end of the First World War and 71 years since the end of the Second World War. An increasing number of Canadians have grown up without even knowing someone who fought or died in a war. The few remaining Second World War veterans are in their 90s and some are too haunted by their experiences to want to share them.
Yet the sacrifices made by Canadians to war efforts is staggering. More than 100,000 Canadians died in the two world wars. Many more were injured. More than 1,500 others were killed or injured in other conflicts including most recently 159 Canadians killed in Afghanistan. Soldiers continue to risk their lives to represent Canada in conflicts around the world. This is not something any of us should ever forget.
Some people are making a valiant effort to find ways to make Remembrance Day relevant, to honour our war dead and to keep their memories alive with services at schools, cemeteries and community centres.
One such program is No Stone Left Alone, which aims to remember fallen soldiers, educate students, and draw attention to fields of honour where our dead are memorialized.
On Monday, several hundred St. Albert students from W.D. Cuts and Bertha Kennedy schools participated in this program. They gathered at two city cemeteries to make sure every gravestone where someone died in a war had a poppy placed on it.
It is part of a growing campaign that started in Edmonton six years ago when Maureen Bianchini-Purvis was trying to find a way to bring home the message of remembrance to young people. No Stone Left Alone has now spread across the country with students placing poppies on more than 40,000 headstones in more than 100 cemeteries.
The sombre look on students’ faces tells the story. The gravestone records the stone cold message of lives cut short, some of them at ages not much older than the students are now.
“There’s something a little more personal about it when you know the people who actually sacrificed themselves are less than 100 feet away from you,” said Andrew Wiens, a teacher at W.D. Cuts who participated in the No Stone Left Alone project.
In other area schools students researched the lives of soldiers, collected dog tags with the names of soldiers on them or participated in assemblies with a Remembrance Day theme.
On Friday there will be big public ceremonies across the country to honour those who sacrificed their lives for us including ceremonies in St. Albert. Among those being honoured are five more St. Albert soldiers who were recently discovered to have lost their lives in the First World War. Earlier this year their names were added to the city cenotaph: Pte. Moise Beausoliel, Pte. Wilfred Chevigny, Pte. Hector Duroche, Pte. Daniel Flynn and Pte. William Laurence. They join the names of Pte. Albert Goodman, Pte. Daniel Kennedy, Sgt. John Kennedy, Pte. Clarence Maloney and Pte. Harry Maloney. All died to defend liberties we enjoy today.
It is important that we all remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. We need to continue to educate our youth about the contribution of our veterans – those who have fought for our privilege of growing up and living in peace.
