By battlefordsNOW

North Battleford remembers

Nov 11, 2018 | 2:29 PM

For Don Beggs, Remembrance Day is a time to gather with old friends and pay tribute to the ones who didn’t make it home.

The 93-year-old was one of the hundreds who packed tightly into John Paul II Collegiate Sunday for local Remembrance Day ceremonies, which, in 2018, mark a century since the signing of the armistice that ended the Great War.

Beggs, a Second World War veteran from Wilkie, served as a telegrapher in the navy from late 1942 to 1945. During the moment of silence, he said he always himself to rehash old memories of “three or four school chums that lost their lives in the war.”

“They were always good friends,” he said. 

His message for the country on this day: “We need a lot more forgiveness and a lot more thoughtfulness and more kindness.”

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This was echoed by Edward Smith, who served from 1942 to 1946 overseas in the Royal Canadian Corp of Signals sending Morse code. It brought him joy each November to see communities coast to coast gathering together to recognize and honour veterans. He returned to the Netherlands in 2005 to mark 60 years since the end of World War II. He said they declared the day a national holiday and felt more needs to be done in Canadian schools to teach youth what Nov. 11 is about.

“They need to better appreciate that Canada is the best country in the world; bar none,” he said.

Later today, communities across Canada will toll bells 100 times to replicate what took place in 1918 after four years of war. 

Some 619,636 Canadians and Newfoundlanders enlisted in the Great War. Nearly 66,000 were killed, while another 172,000 were injured in a country of just eight million at the time.

Of focus for the Royal Canadian Legion this year is those involved in The Great War. In our region, one of those being remembered is Alex Decoteau, who was born on Nov. 19, 1887, on the Red Pheasant First Nation, and killed at Passchendaele. He was an Olympian and Canada’s first Indigenous police officer.

Earlier today in France, international leaders used the occasion to warn of the risks that politicians who call themselves nationalists pose to fragile peace in the world. French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other leaders came to Paris hoping to use the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War to renew calls to quash festering tensions across the globe.

— With files from the Canadian Press

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr