The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 7, 2001 - 81 TERRACE STANDARD COMMUNITY: | INSIDE COMMUNITY EVENTS B2 Around Town Stamp honours Legion ON NOV. 11, Canadians remember the sacri- fices made by our Armed Forces in wars, con- flicts, and peace keeping missions. This year, Canada Post is issuing a comme- morative stamp honouring the Royal Canadian Legion. The 47-cent Royal Canadian Legion stamp will be available for sale after Remembrance Day. And here in Terrace, the main post office invites the community to come take part in celebrations for the stamp’s issue, That takes place next Wednesday, Nov. 14 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Profiles in courage and sacrifice B.C.’8 KNOWLEDGE Network TV channel broadcasts a range of special Remembrance Day programming all this week and on Nov, 11. a documentary about 11 Second World War veterans and their reflections on life on the battlefield, and the lasting effects of war. That’s foliowed by Behind Enemy Lines at 9 pm. and Unwanted Soldiers at 10 p.m,, two do- cumentaries on the role Canadian secret agents played during the Second World War. Tomorrow night’s The War Brides looks al the stories of some of the 48,000 European and British women who married Canadians during the 1940s and came here to start new lives after the war. It airs at 8 p.m. A Time For Courage, the story of one of four Canadian women who ferried planes overseas, airs at 9 p.m, Qn Saturday, look for a profile of the man poem ever. John MeCrae's War: In Flanders Fields airs at 7 p.m. Nov. 11, starting at 2 p.m. with Behind Enemy Lines, and ending with Unwanted Soldiers at 10 p.m. Remembrance Day service and parade THIS YEAR’S Remembrance Day service and parade will look and sound a little different this year. The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 13 will be recognizing the victims of the Sept. 11 at- _tacks on the United States. Pat Smith, past president of the legion, will the current efforts of the Canadian Armed For- ces in his address during the service at the Til- licum Theatre. “{ think it’s the right thing to do,” Smith said, adding, “it will be a different mood.” Local fire depart- ‘| ments and Terrace RCMP have been asked to lay a wreath at the Ce- }j notaph in memory mi of their fallen col- leagues in New York City. Terrace’s veteran, 94-year- old Bill Bennett, will join Smith for the salute en route to the Cenotaph during the parade after the service. The legion marks its 82nd anniver- sary in Terrace this year. The legion’s Remembrance Day program pbegins al 10 a.m., when the parade forms at “the Safeway parking lot. At 10:10 a.m, the parade marches to the Tillicum Theatre for a prayer service. ‘ — At 10:50 a.m. Capt. Dave Moulton leads the opening prayer. That's followed by the singing of the natio- Pat Smith Me, and a moment of silence. Legion Padre Rev. Lance Stephens will give an address, as will past president Smith, The service concludes with God Save the Queen. The Remembrance Day parade takes place following the service. It will start in front of Safeway and head toward City Hall along La- kelse Ave. The laying of the wreathes at the Cenotaph __ will begin around noon. Rey, Lance Stephens will then lead a prayer. After that, the parade returns to the mar- shalling point. Poppy talk dian Legion asks you to wear a poppy. — -.- Money donated during the Legion’s poppy ‘assist. veterans and their families. . A Soldier’s Voice, aiting tonight at 8 p.m., is who created possibly the most famous war . Each of these programs will be repeated on — be including some remarks about Sept. 11 and- oldest ° nal anthem, C Canada, the hymn Abide With ON REMEMBRANCE DAY, the Royal Cana-— campaign is‘placed in public. trust funds. that . BROTHERS IN ARMS: Bill and Murray Kennedy in 4945. Bill, left, joined the Canadian Army. Murray joined the Navy. Both were By ALLAN KENNEDY N 1939 AND 1940 a cou- ple of things happened to our family that had a pro- found effect on us. I was eight years old at the time, but I can ‘remember some things very well. My brother Murray joined -the Canadian Navy, my brother Bill joined the Canadian Army,. and my father died — in that order. My father worked for the CPR: . far 29 years and six months and _ because he didn’t quite get his 30 years in, mother did not receive any pension. She got free transportation on any CPR line for her and us three | kids at home, me and my younger sister and my slightly older sister until we were 16 years old. That left us in a position that-~ was considered as very poor al the time. Now, it would be called “very dire straits”. My knowledge of the war at that age was that there was some- thing very bad happening over the water, and that my brothers were poing over there to set it straight. There was no sense of this being a great adventure for them,” in our family. My mother knew from her knowledge of the First World War that one or both of her sons might. not come back. She did not say this to us kids, but I knew from her atlitude ~ and her sometimes worrying out loud, I don’t remember the word, pa- triotism, but the phrase, “Doing their duty”, I heard her say ance. I spent the whole time during World War f] worrying whether my brothers would survive — or if I would survive, once they came ‘ home and found out how much of theiy fishing tackle I had either lost or broken while they were gone! As it turned out, both of them were so happy ta be home they didn’t care and laughed when I told them many years later how I had worried, None of us who have nol ex- perienced the horror of front-line battle can pretend to understand war and its consequences. 1 do know what it's like to lay on the ground in the mud and have my spasming muscles try to push my sharp, broken bones through my skin. That's just from a fairly common industrial acci- dent. I know also that the last thing “in my mind would have been - heroism, patriotism or any other such fancy word for what is actu- ally pain and fear. My: brother Murray’s ship, - the HMCS Prince David, was the first part of the Allied invasion on D-Day, as their younger brother Allan recalls. PHOTO GONTRIBUTED The War and us &% a One man recalls how his family ‘survived the Second World War landing craft: carrier in on the Ca- nadian Sector on D-Day. * When he returned home, he was reluctant to talk about it, but 1 did manage to get one of his memories of that day. His ship dropped off all of their landing craft, fully loaded, and not a one made it back. So the Prince David stood off and shelled with their big guns when ordered to. The ship was also used as a passionate and forgiving of most any living thing. iP SE My grandfather was given title to about 280 acres of heavily tim- bered land, about half-way be- tween Dryden and Kenora, on what's now the Trans Canada Highway, for his military service in the Fenian War in 1866 — the last skirmish between the U.S, A. and Canada around Niagara Falls. “None of us who have not experienced the horror of front-line battle can pretend to understand war and its consequences.” transport for the dead, back to England. Murray knew his brother might lie among the dead. He would walk along the rows of bodies until he saw a pair of size 8 boots, and flip the tarp back to see if it was Bill. It never was. Both my brothers made it out alive. Bul for a 20-year-old kid to put himself through that had, 1 think, a very negative effect on him for the rest of his life. I worked with Murray for years. T got-to know him as well as any- body, possibly with the exception of His wile, ~ Despite the things that he had seen and done, he was-still com- With great difficulty at times, he held on to the land until he died in 1908, willing it to our fa- ther, who was then 26. Like his father, he also held on to it through thick and thin, in- cluding the Depression of the 1930s, My mother told me dad had said we could all starve to death before he would let us go on the Dole, as welfare was called then, nor would he consider’selling that land. it was his plan to log it when his buys came home from ‘World War ll. Then my father died intestate. My mother knew nathing of his. business: , Allan Kennedy One day she received a tax no- tice of $13. She simply didn't have the money fo pay it. ‘Nor did she have the money the next year, when another tax notice arrived, The government sald the prop- erty to a pulp company for $26. My brothers’ reward for doing their thing for their country was 280 acres of clearcut stumps. When told that under the cir- cumstances we could probably get the land back, my brother Bill, in his anger, disbelief and disap- pointment, told them to shove it. TE The reason I an writing this is that I belong to the Never Again school of thought. I think every Canadian should never be allowed to forget what happened in our two Greal Wars, There has beer so much writ- ten and filmed and discussed by much smarter and more educated people than myself. 1 thought | could come up with an original thought, But there is one thing that al- ways puzzles me: after ihe war, my brothers and [I worked with many former German soldiers in the woods. The ones | worked with were pleasant, considerate peaple who would do anything in their power to avoid hurting you — as we also did for them, There are also hundreds of safety laws that apply to every- one, so as to not endanger your- self or anyone else, Then why is it that tomorrow, our leaders can supply us with a rifle or whatever and train us to kill these kind of people ~ and give you a medal for doing it? Allan Kennedy is a -leng-time Terrace resident and former log- ger.