My Remembrance Day thoughts

[Farrier1987]

Rolled this around, whether or not to post it and decided to. Fair long, but for those that persevere, thank you.

Remembrance Day 2016.

I think of my father, RCNVR 1942 to 1945 with 24 Atlantic crossings in convoy and Uboats, my uncle RCHA Dday Europe and later Korea, my grandfather, Canadian Expeditionary Forces at Vimy Ridge and Paschendale.

My grandfather George R. Reid, born in 1885 in Ontario. Moved west to homestead in 1905, near Imperial Saskatchewan.

In 1915, he enlisted in the Canadian Army to fight the war to end all wars. It didn’t work.

He was put into the 31st battalion of the Southern Alberta Regiment. Many groups had names then. The colonel of the battalion was named Bell, and this group was known as Bell’s Bulldogs. Grampa was a replacement, coming in because many of the originals in the regiment had been killed in Flanders.

The 31st was awarded many battle honours. Of 4487 men that served, nearly a quarter were killed. 941 young men died, and 2312 men were wounded but survived. The math on that is horrific, and hard for others to understand. Over 70% of the men in the 31st were either killed or wounded. They truly put their lives on the line and fought for what they believed in.

And my grandfather was there. And other young men from all over Canada. And I remember and think about them.

I remember another man too. He was a brother soldier in arms with Grampa George. His name was Tom LaBelle. He lived near us as I grew up, and the two soldier’s children and grandchildren grew up together.

Tom LaBelle was an Indian. From Hobbema south of Edmonton. Tom was wounded in France, I am not sure at what battle, but he survived his wounds and served honourably.

When he came back to Canada, he married a woman from Standoff Alberta, a member of the Blood tribe. They settled on the Stony reserve at Morley.

After the war, Grampa Reid went to work for the federal government, Department of Indian Affairs, out of the office in Regina Saskatchewan. I am not sure of his job description, but I know he went to various reserves paying treaty money. He flew to many of the remote reserves, and knew and flew with Wop May and other early bush pilots.

When the depression hit, there were cutbacks and his job disappeared. But in 1932 there was an opening with Indian Affairs at a reserve west of Calgary, the Morley reserve, the Stony tribe, part of the Nakoda Sioux.

So he and my grandmother and two sons loaded up and moved. His job was called “The Clerk”. I usually tell people he was the Indian Agent, because it’s easier. But his job was to dole out supplies and keep books for what the government spent on the reserve. And one of the people he dealt with was Tom LaBelle.

Tom LaBelle and George Reid, inadvertently, had their lives entwined, and so did their families. Their children and grandchildren grew up together.

Today, the 11 November 2016, we are to remember. Remember the young men that went off to war. Remember why they fought, and honour them.

This is my way of remembering and honouring these men I knew, and others I didn’t.

And I want to help others remember and think. We have a long history with our Canadian Indians. By war and invasion, we whites stole their country by means fair and foul. By treaty and by starvation and disease, but the bottom line is the Indians lost their land. It was there for the taking, and it was taken.

History puts each Canadian at this place at their time. It is my belief that we must embrace our diversity of skin colour, religion, social status, and political persuasion. There is room for all.

I ask all Canadians to go forward in our piece of history, as honourably as Tom LaBelle and George Reid went forward in their time. As they did their duty going to war, let us do our duty, making and keeping our country free.

Yes, there are drunk Indians. Yes there are Muslim terrorists. Yes there are Sikhs who would blow an airplane out of the sky. We must do what we can to prevent these things, but the very best way to do this is individually, one by one. To not put up with bigotry and intolerance and racial profiling, to teach our children that this is not the way Canadians do things. As a country, we are not bullies, but neither do we put up with bullies.

My individual history says remember Tom LaBelle. Remember George Reid and remember the reasons they fought.

The men who went to war and served our country, I want to make them proud. It is my duty, and I plan to do it.

Colin Reid, Merlin Ontario. 11 November 2016

[Killerbunny]

Thank you for putting that all down.
Hubbys father was a bomber pilot WW2. He was never quite right after they bombed Dresden, didn't talk about it but we heard from other Polish pilots that they had to fly back over a city in flames. Many committed suicide. After he died we received package containing his many medals - Virtuti Militari (Knights Cross) 3X and others. Trying to figure out how to donate them back to the bomber museum in UK.

[TomK]

Thank you Farrier...it was a different time back then...people looked at their world from a slightly different angle...it wasn't a me me world...I always think deeply at this time of year...being the keeper of my family's histories, and also an immigrant to this country from Germany, i get both sides often enough..my dad was only 14 when the war ended but my uncles (his two older brothers) signed up in the German navy...Kurt ended up on a destroyer class ship and Hans on a UBoat..neither talked about their time much aside from the living conditions and the comraderie ...very typical of the men who served...they signed up because of their need to serve their country... same as here...there was no ideology, no hatred, no nothing...just a response to being called upon by your country...same as here...both survived, both were serious alcoholics, both lived to be old men with wonderful families and they were great uncles to me and my siblings....
MJs dad was 15 when WW2 broke out and had two older brothers and two younger brothers..the two older ones, John and Arthur signed up on this side of the Atlantic in the Air force... John became a pilot and Arthur a navigator...both survived the war, both married and raised families and lived moderately long lives..oh, and both were serious alcoholics...war is hell on the soul...MJs dad wanted to sign up but his father said no as he needed the help running the farm...lucky man but it niggled at him for years that somehow he let his country down...he didn't but it took years for him to realize this...
My mother in law, she who would be obeyed, had three uncles on her mothers side..Raymond, Delorme, and Ford...they all signd up..infantry all...through some error, Raymond and Ford ended up in the same unit and coming through Italy Raymond witnessed Ford killed by artillery shrapnel...he was buried there as soon as it was safe to do and i have a photo of Raymond and Delorme holding hands across Fords grave...I have no idea where this gravesite is in Italy but it isn't the location of the marked site in the official military cemetery ..Raymond was never right after this and came home more emotionally damaged than most..Delorme came back as well, drink being a crutch and drowned accidentally shortly after the war ended...
i have talked with my mom and dad often about their times during the war as they were both children and lived in the industrial city of Stuttgart which saw its fair share of bombing..they tell me things readily and i try to write a lot of it down...my dad recalls stories from his dad who was in the German military during WW2 and who died in 1941...he had uncles who he never met who fought and died in the First War...
All these young men, and let's not forget the families left behind, waiting, dreading that telegram...all doing what they thought was the right thing, in times of great stress and under unbelievable conditions...let's remember them if we can and if we can't remember, let's honour what was done for us by them and the price paid

[baronrenfrew]

My uncle Raymond (my mother's brother) fought with the Allied side and was wounded and spent many months in hospital in Paris. The hospital was bombed and a doctor carried him out. There was no word of him until he knocked at the door home in Gatineau (Ottawa).

My fathers brothers served on the German side, the only story I know of is my Uncle Paul was a scout on horseback on the Russian front. When the Germans surrendered he escaped. He lead his horse into a barn and began shovelling out the stables. Russian soldiers showed up and asked about the boy in the barn, the farmer said he was no one...just a stable boy. He asked the farmer to take good care of his horse, and he walked home, travelling at night.

The Catholic Priest of my father's village was sent to the concentration camps for speaking out against the Nazis. Anyone deemed "an enemy of the state" was sent to these "camps". Many other prisoners were kept alive by the food the villagers sent to the priest in the camp.

Our family friend Tony was a Polish child who was sent to Palestine as a Polish soldier under the English flag. He didn't talk of fighting but of the many "amazing" things he got away with at that time and place.

[Jaye]

My parents were in the Netherlands at the time. 'nuff said.
My father in law volunteered/enlisted. He never talked about his time overseas. He was one of the few from his regimen that survived.
Thank you to all who made it possible for peace in Canada.

[Brebis]

Thank you all for posting these stories, they get to the heart of Rememberance Day.

My mother’s biological father was a physician in WW2. His wife and 2 young children, my mother and her brother, lived in Kingston. The separation took a deadly toll as my grandmother took her own life after learning of my grandfather leaving her for an English woman near the end of the war. My mother and brother were adopted by their mothers brother and wife and their fathers family never spoken of.

Many years later my mother was working in Toronto at a geriatric hospital and struck up a conversation with an older gentleman from Owen Sound. My mother mentioned she was born there and that she had moved to Kingston as a young child. He asked her what her maiden name was and at the answer he started to cry and asked to phone his wife. The first words to her were “I’ve found them”. His wife was my mothers biological dad’s sister! They were finally reunited with the 2 children they had tried to adopt when their mother died but were spurned by the other side of the family.

This lead to a wonderful relationship and discovery of their fathers family and their grandfather who was a physician in WW1. It was especially of interest for my uncle who discovered his grandfathers grave and had a formal veterans gravestone installed. They also learned that their father also took his own life in the mid 60’s. Though they had few years with them, they were very precious in giving them all closure and peace.

So, through this lost and found story my family now has much more to remember.

[G Williams]

My Grandfather was a conscript who was in England waiting to be deployed across the
English Channel when The Armistice was called November 11, 1918. He went over and did Police and security duty as things were in disarray after the war. He commented that food was scarce. The returning soldiers were malnourished and that they lost weight even crossing the Atlantic. All their victories were done in less than prime condition.

[windwalkingwolf]

Dad

Garrie

Love you, miss you, We remember.