SUNDRE – The annual Remembrance Day ceremony will for the first time since the start of the pandemic be returning to River Valley School.
And Todd MacDonald, Royal Canadian Legion Branch #223 chaplain, looks forward to welcoming everybody back regardless of their mobility and offering a venue where veterans and seniors can be warm and safe.
“We don’t have to worry about our veterans who do show up and our seniors getting cold,” said MacDonald, who anticipates a sizeable gathering of residents coming out to pay their respects.
The last indoor ceremony was held in 2019. Over the last two years since, the local legion had endeavoured under difficult circumstances to make arrangements for an outdoor informal ceremony at the Veterans’ Homecoming Park cenotaph.
“Only the hardiest could make it out,” said MacDonald, adding the location also wasn’t ideal in terms of accessibility for those with wheelchairs or walkers.
So, returning to the warm embrace of an accommodating space like River Valley School’s gymnasium is a blessing, he said.
“The school has just bent over backward to make this happen,” he said. “It is going to be a relief for so many who really rely on that contact; that physical contact and that support that you can only feel by getting together.”
Chris Ferguson, Royal Canadian Legion Branch #223 president, said the doors will open to the public this Friday at 10 a.m. with the 45-minute ceremony getting started at 10:30 a.m.
The Sundre Community Choir will be participating in the service and members of both the Legion and the Auxiliary will be supplying and serving sandwiches following the formalities.
MacDonald will also be imparting some thoughts.
As history’s unstoppable forward march continues, there of course are fewer and fewer veterans from the Second World War to offer direct insight into humanity’s darkest chapter in modern times.
“But I think the fact that we lost one of the most recognizable veterans, was quite the shock,” said MacDonald. “I’m not a monarchist, but it was the Queen. She was a full on veteran.”
Prior to ascending the throne in 1952, the late Queen Elizabeth II had during the final months of the conflict taken on duties serving in the military and learned not only how to drive trucks – which remained decades away from boasting fancy features such as power steering assist – but also how to fix them.
“[She] pretty much gave up everything to fulfill a role in the military,” said MacDonald.
“I don’t think a lot of people here realize that she was in the middle of it. A lot of monarchs, they’d send their kids and their families away to countries that could protect them.”
So, the local Legion’s chaplain said he intends to weave her story into the theme of his address, which essentially will revolve around “the whole idea of feeling it important enough to put self aside and serve country, which is basically the model of the Canadian forces.”
From the monarch to the rank and file, he said everyone can play a role in service to their community or country.
“I think that’s the big thing for me," he said.
