King City Secondary remembers
By Bill Rea

Lt.-Col. Susan Beharriell stressed the importance of Canada's peacekeeping role to KCSS students Friday.

People who serve in uniform do a job that is sometimes hard and dangerous, but it's done with a lot of pride.

That was a message King resident Lt.-Col. Susan Beharriell put forth Friday when she addressed the Remembrance Day assembly at King City Secondary School.

The service included a number of individual events, including student performances, tributes to the Canadian service personnel who have died over the last few years in peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan, etc.

"Today, we are remembering our past," commented MC Jessica Cognolato.

Beharriell urged the students to remember the veterans.

"They fought to defeat evil," she said. "They fought to oppose tyranny. They fought to restore peace."

Beharriell said there have been some 1.5 million Canadians who have served in the forces since 1867, and many of those actually fought, with about 110,000 giving their lives for current and future generations.

She added the forces currently serving in Afghanistan are fighting for the same principles, such as freedoms that many people take for granted, such as the freedom to express themselves, to speak, to vote, for women to drive or go to school, and come or go as one pleases.

Spencer Le Von and Evan Wilson performed the Bob Dylan classic Blowin' in the Wind at Friday's assembly.

Beharriell stressed there is a safe and happy life in Canada because of sacrifices of veterans in the two World Wars, Korea and in other operations, including in Afghanistan.

She pointed out there are more than 2,300 Canadians in Afghanistan, trying to help the people and government there have a country that's secure and at peace, and that provides basic services like water, health and education.

Beharriell said there were 620,000 Canadians who took part in the First World War, and many of them faced "unimaginable horrors."

July 1, 1916 saw the first day of the Battle of the Somme in France. There were 800 members of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment fighting that day, and Beharriell said only 68 answered roll call the next morning. That represented the greatest wartime loss for Newfoundland in history, and it earned the regiment a "Royal" designation from the King.

In the end, Canadians suffered some 24,000 casualties in the Somme campaign.

There were more than a million Canadian men and women who joined up for the Second World War, Beharriell said, including about 3,000 Aboriginals.

She told of engagements between Canadian naval ships and German U-boats, and recalled her father was navigator on a corvette, escorting convoys, and she told of the pictures she had seen of men breaking ice off the decks to keep the ship from being weighted down and sinking.

There were about 40,000 Canadians killed in that war and another approximately 55,000 wounded, and a lot of them would have joined up right out of high school. Beharriell said all the boys in her mother's class in high school joined up, and many of them never came home.

She also told of the Canadian war cemeteries in France and the Netherlands, with rows of white markers, each bearing a maple leaf. Children still place candles at each marker in Holland every Christmas Eve.

"They will always remember the sacrifices our Canadian soldiers made for them," she commented. "We must do the same."

There have been numerous actions Canadians have taken part in since the Second World War under the auspices of the United Nations. That included the Suez crisis in 1956, which Beharriell said demonstrated how effective the U.N. could be.

"It marked the birth of modern peacekeeping," she remarked, telling the students it was then external

affairs minister (later prime minister) Lester Pearson who put forth the idea of the U.N. deploying soldiers to keep the peace until the situation there could be sorted out.

"It bought the world time," Beharriell said, adding it earned Pearson, known as the "Father of Peacekeeping," the Nobel Peace Prize. She also observed that had the crisis escalated, it would likely have involved the superpowers.

There have been more than 150 Canadians killed in international operations since then, and Beharriell said people should be proud of the country's peacekeeping record. But she also observed that the job has changed in the modern world, with the advent of terrorism and more weapons of mass destruction. In that setting, she said Canadians have to be prepared to do their part, despite the risks, and confront these threats before they reach these shores. That includes the current efforts in Afghanistan.

"Canadians cannot let others do all the hard work," she added. "We are doing our share as a member of NATO."

She also said that today's forces carry on an honoured and scared legacy, and she urged the students to send messages of support to them. This can be done through the forces' Web site, www.forces.gc.ca

"Your support means a lot to the troops overseas," she said. "They get them and they are very appreciative."