Both sides of my family have a long history of serving the country that afforded us opportunities and quality of life that would not have been available to us in our countries of origin. My grandfather survived three years of horrific trench warfare in W.W. I and while he came back with his limbs intact his mind was forever broken. Every year at this time I watch the grainy films of Canadian soldiers at Ypres and Vimy Ridge and wonder if one of them is my grandfather and I usually cry at the memories of how much those experiences permanently damaged his mind and soul.
My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in W.W.II (as well as another twenty-five years in an R.C.A.F. Reserve Squadron on Sea Island) as did another member of the family who was killed in a training exercise in England in 1943. His parents never recovered from their loss. A lake in Manitoba is named after him in appreciation of his ultimate sacrifice.
For my own part, true to the legacies passed on to me as an Air Force “Brat”, I joined the Air Cadets as a teenager with the intention of becoming an R.C.A.F. pilot only to have my plans thwarted by vision problems.
The first member of my family on the other side to come to Canada arrived in 1649 as a member of a French army regiment, and decided to stay in this country instead of returning home with his unit. The most notable member of that family was Calixa Lavallee who was wounded while serving in a Union regiment during the American civil war and then returned to Canada to subsequently write Oh Canada, our national anthem.
My family therefore feels a deep kinship with all the veterans who gathered together on Remembrance Day to honour those, like the members of my family, who served their country in times of war. Rest in peace Billy and Grandpa - I will never forget you.
Ray Arnold,
Richmond
