Deachman: From the very young to the very old, they marked Remembrance Day in Ottawa

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Ten-year-old Beatrice Desjardins was among those who attended Monday’s Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial, the bright red poppy over her heart contrasting sharply with the blue of her winter jacket.

On the right side of her jacket, the Rockland resident wore the George Medal, the General Service Medal and the Atlantic Star, honours awarded to her great-grandfather, Gerald Caissie, who served in the Second World War escorting ships across the Atlantic.

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“They’re heavy,” Beatrice said. “But they make me feel happy, because he was in the Second World War and he helped Canada.”

The weight of Canadians’ sacrifices on battlefields and elsewhere was on the minds and in the hearts of many who attended Monday’s ceremony, each in their own way.

Line Carole Bissonnette was also at the cenotaph, where she’s gone each Nov. 11 for more than 30 years. Her father, Jean Bissonnette, signed up in 1943 and set sail for Europe from Halifax in January ’45, spending 16 months in Paris as a military police officer.

Like many veterans, he didn’t talk much about his wartime experiences, and she wishes she’d paid closer attention when he did. But she remembers some of his anecdotes, such as when he taught a young British woman to skate — “How much more Canadian can you be?” Bissonnette asks — but turned down invitations from the woman to share dinner with her family, saying he had to return to the base. “But that wasn’t true. He knew they were so poor, he didn’t want to eat with them and take their food.”

Since 2020, Bissonnette has been writing a novel based on her father’s anecdotes and the black-and-white pictures in his photo album.

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“It’s very important to come here, as a remembrance for my dad, but for all the young men from L’Orignal where I grew up — many who didn’t come back — and all the veterans, the women and men who left everything behind, and went abroad not knowing what they would find.”

Monday’s ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, and by Silver Star Mother Maureen Anderson of Oromocto, N.B., whose two sons, Sgts. Ron and Ryan Anderson, both served in Afghanistan. Anderson’s arrival was greeted by spontaneous applause from the thousands of onlookers.

Wreaths were laid, the Last Post played, and the Canadian Armed Forces Central Band and the Ottawa Children’s choir lent an air of solemnity. The extremely low clouds that swirled as the guns went off, each time shaking nearby buildings and alarming onlookers, brought the sense and sacrifice of war just a little closer to home.

Of course, many in attendance were already well aware of the cost of duty. Father and son Bob and Rob King (81 and 55, respectively, have both served — this year’s ceremony will be Rob’s last in active service — and on Monday the pair represented four generations of military Kings, with Bob’s father and four brothers all serving, while Rob’s son, Griffin, is currently also in the military.

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Barry Kilroy carried a framed photo of his father, Willis Kilroy, astride a motorcycle in the Netherlands, where he served with a repair and salvage unit. “I wanted him to be here today,” said Barry, who travelled from Montreal for the ceremony. Included in the frame was the “Kilroy was here” cartoon, popularly used during the Second World War, according to Barry, as an indication that the Allies had cleared an area and that it was safe. “It worked for him,” Barry said.

Andy Coulthard, meanwhile, may have had one eye on the past and the other to the future and the CF-18s that flew overhead, as he attended his first Remembrance Day ceremony. Andy’s grandmother’s great-uncle died on the battlefield in the First World War and is buried in Arras, France. Andy, an 11-year-old Trenton native, is looking forward to joining the air cadets next year, and one day becoming a military pilot.

Like 10-year-old Beatrice, he too, seemed to have some sense of the weight of the occasion. “It’s important to remember the veterans who died in the war,” he said. “They fought for our country and they sacrificed their lives.”

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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