To preface my letter, I wish to state that I was a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces for 34 ½ years and that I was honorably medically retired in March of 2013.
Once again the Morinville Town Council sits to debate the merits of supporting the LAV III Monument Project, thus using municipal taxpayers' monies to fund a proposed federal memorial. I thought that this was inappropriate, not really wanted by a majority of Morinville (and other) citizens of Canada, and just a down-loading of federal financial responsibility and expense to communities that are already financially strapped .
Now do not get me wrong – I really do like to see monuments that remind Canadian citizens about the sacrifices their soldiers (which includes me) have made on behalf of Canadian citizens, but this LAV III Monument Project is not a good way of honouring wounded and dead soldiers. These LAV IIIs should be mounted and displayed on our various Canadian military bases, where the LAV IIIs can be properly safe-guarded, and maintained at federal government expense, and kept safe from vandals or from people who might endanger themselves by trying to climb on this very large vehicle. Furthermore, as most Canadian military bases are open-concept, the Canadian public would still be able view these Military Base LAV III Monuments at almost any time they wished to do so.
As most municipalities already have standing and respected war memorials, the LAV III Monument Project that I would like to see happen for CFB Edmonton and other military bases would consist of a central cairn, surrounded by four LAV IIIs (on cement pads and pylons – say, built by ‘1 Combat Engineering Regiment’ (1 CER), here at CFB Edmonton (thus at federal government expense), with the four LAV IIIs pointing outwards to the four major compass loci (i.e., North, South, East and West). Additionally, I would like to see small brass plaques mounted onto the surfaces of the applicable LAV III, with the name, rank, etc., of the fallen soldier from that base/unit. Heck, I would be willing to buy some of these brass plaques myself, to honour friends who never came back alive from overseas. Thoughts, anyone?
Since we are talking about war memorials, there is also one pet peeve I have concerning military (Air Force) memorials at/on CFB Edmonton, and that concerns how most of the memorial aircraft that were once on the base were removed from CFB Edmonton, once the Canadian Army took control of the base. It should not matter what form the military memorial takes to honour our fallen service brothers and sisters, as any military memorial is welcome, but it is my belief that the past removal of these Air Force memorials was, and is, still a blemish on those who authorized the removal of said Canadian Air Force memorials.
Mike Cue, Morinville
