CFB Shilo’s Nov. 11 Remembrance Day service will be held at the gymnasium at the MPTF. Be seated NLT 10:30 a.m. Friends and families are welcome, but seating is limited. If you can’t make it, the service will also be live-streamed on your Shilo Stag Facebook page.

Jules Xavier
Shilo Stag

For those attending a Remembrance Day ceremony on Base, in Brandon, or elsewhere, pause during the two minutes of silence and think about the 20 CFB Shilo-based soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
While we’re no longer involved in the Afghanistan War on combat missions against the Taliban, we still have Canadian soldiers deployed to a number of theatres including Lativa on Op REASSURANCE.
War is a plague on humanity which has existed as long as people have gathered together and will unfortunately and without doubt mar our planet again.
Not a year has gone by in recorded history where at least one civil war, revolution or insurgency has not taken place. It has been said that the one constant in the history of man is war. No matter how many young men or women perish or how many lives are turned upside down, war persists through time.
One day, take a walk to the cenotaph in Brandon, Douglas, Boissevain or other Manitoba hamlets, towns and cities and try to picture the faces of those who never returned home after losing their lives on the battlefield.
Like the three Bowes brothers who died in the Great War (1914-1918), and are among 59 names inscribed on a towering cenotaph unveiled in 1920 in Boissevain which features the statue of a soldier carved out of Italian stone.
The community of Glenboro saw 34 men and women die in the First World War, including Christine Frederickson, who died on Oct. 28, 1916, and 13 in the Second World War (1939-1945), including F/O T. Frederickson.
There is a community north of Edmonton, the hamlet of Vimy — named after Vimy Ridge in France where 11,285 Canadian soldiers perished during the First World War. Of this total, there were eight men from Boissevain who died at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, including Hank Anderson and buddy Gordon Little from the 44th Battalion. These two as well as Cliff Mains were profiled in the documentary Warpaths: Every Town Had A Soldier, narrated and researched by former RCA Museum director Marc George.
Cenotaphs in our communities remind us of the folly of war. Cities, towns and villages list their fallen upon them, with some of these soldiers who died on the Vimy and other battlefields having trained in trench warfare in 1916 at nearby Camp Hughes as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).
There are a handful of soldiers buried at Camp Hughes; their deaths attributed to disease during training. Pneumonia was especially cruel to young soldiers, with seven dying, including four privates who died in a 13-day span in July 1916: John Davidson (13th), John Messenger (17th), Walter Barringer (22nd) and William Perkins 26th).
In the Brandon cemetery, two buddies with the Canadian Mounted Rifles died in the spring of 1915 while training to go overseas with the CEF. They are buried together, with a family grave stone, plus their military tombstones which came later. Trooper John Bloomer, 28, went first on March 3, while Cpl Thomas Lane followed on April 2. He was 21.
The First World War was labeled as the War to End All Wars, but perhaps a more fitting name would be the war to herald a new age of warfare. Poison gas, tanks and machine guns all evolved from the bloody trenches of that era.
Now more than ever before, with the destructive forces at our command, the message behind Remembrance Day rings true; war is mankind’s greatest and deadliest folly.
Walk through the Brandon cemetery and its military section and gaze at granite slabs above veterans who survived the conflict overseas so that Canadians could enjoy their freedoms today. Among the many rows is the headstone of 2PPCLI’s MCpl Timothy James Wilson, who was KIA on March 5, 2006 while in Afghanistan. Friends and fellow soldiers often leave him a large Tim Hortons coffee, or small mini bar fridge sized bottles of Jim Beam.
It has been 101 years since the First World War ended, and 74 since the last shots were fired in the Second World War.
Our veteran population from three conflicts, including the Korean War, grows fewer with the passage of time. Every Nov. 11, Canadians across this country pause for a silent moment of remembrance for the men and women who served our country during wartime.
Like Douglas, where 13 men from the that tiny community died in the First World War and are listed on the cenotaph.
Lorne and Percy Broad, Alex Campbell, William Doak, Harry Faggetter, James Leith, Joseph Madder, George McLean, WJ McGowan, Charles Rollins, Thomas Shepherdson, George Westcott and Frank Whittle never returned with other CEF veterans to Canada. Instead, their final resting place is on a battlefield likely where they fell, or in a well kept cemetery looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).
Canada’s last known First World War veteran, 109-year-old John Babcock, died in 2010. He enlisted at age 16, but did not see any front-line action with the CEF because of his age.
They grow old today, but their actions should not be forgotten, just as their comrades who sacrificed their lives and their future so that we may live in peace.
The valour of men and women who died fighting for their country during the First, Second and Korean Wars, and more recently, the Afghan War, must not be forgotten. Or for those soldiers who were deployed on Peacekeeping missions in Cyprus or more recently Bosnia, with 2PPCLI involved in the Battle of Medak Pocket.
For that reason, I was told by Jack Reilly, a Royal Canadian Legion member, there are a number of traditions associated with the Nov. 11 ceremonies, from selling poppies to raise funds to assist war veterans and their families to visiting schools and talking about war-time experiences.
“It’s important that we bring our message to the younger people. As we get older there will be fewer of us to talk about what we went through or explain the freedom they enjoy today is a result of us going to war,” he said. “I tell the kids that sometimes when you want your freedom, you have to fight for it.”
The laying of wreaths, Last Post, lament and reveille, according to Reilly, are part of the Remembrance Day ceremonies based on traditions passed on from the British Empire.
“I can remember when I was a young boy standing by my desk at school on Nov. 11 and there would be two minutes of silence. It was important for our teachers because they were ex-service people from the First World War and Remembrance Day was important to them.
“Then in 1939 another war brought Remembrance Day back into focus. There was a war going on and people were dying. After the Korean conflict for some reason the two minutes of silence went down to one minute.”
The two-minute silence is back thanks to an initiative of the Legion called the Wave of Silence campaign, which asks Canadians to stop for two minutes of silence at 11 a.m.
Moreover, Reilly pointed out that the poppy plays an integral part in the days leading up to Remembrance Day ceremonies. While money is raised through sales, the poppy stands for much more when worn by veterans.
“The poppy is a symbol and tradition that we should evaluate and keep in perspective because it does mean a lot for us, the one’s who were lucky enough to return home,” he said. “Being part of the war is an experience I never regretted. There were six of us who left Edmonton one sunny day by train for Toronto. Only two of us returned home alive.”
Lest we forget!