Presented to the Alberni Valley Community, 11 November 2022, by Major Michael Ramsay, Legion Branch #293 Chaplain (Padre)
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ. The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth forever more.
At the 11th hour of the
11th day of the 11th month, time stands still for a moment; and we remember
those who died, not for war, but for a world that would be free and at peace.
Psalm
116:3-4:
The cords of death
entangled me,
the anguish of the
grave came over me;
I was overcome by
distress and sorrow.
Then I called on the
name of the Lord:
“Lord, save me!”
Isaiah
2:4:
He will judge between
the nations
and will settle
disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their
swords into plowshares
and their spears into
pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up
sword against nation,
nor will they train for
war anymore.
Almighty God. You are our refuge and strength;
we humble ourselves in Your presence, and, remembering the great things you
have done for us, we lift up our hearts in adoration and praise. As you have
gathered us together this day, we give You thanks for all who served their
country in time of trial.
In remembrance of those
who made the supreme sacrifice, make us better men and women, and give us peace
in our time, O Lord.
Today I have my facemask from the Legion with
me. You probably can’t see it that well. It is red with a poppy on it. We lost
a few legion members throughout covid-19. Most people in our community lost
someone during covid-19. Do you remember the fear when the pandemic began? Do
you remember the empty streets? Do you remember the flags we used to have in
front of City Hall to mark the dead in BC from the pandemic? Every week we used
to address this community from that spot mentioning the tragedy as the number
of flags, each representing a casualty grew. Can you imagine if in 1914 or 1944
we added a flag for every casualty of war?
In World War One, 650
000 Canadians gave their lives and our whole country only had around 7 million
people. 1401 from BC alone gave there lives and of the only 1600 people who
lived in the Alberni Valley, 116 – more than 17% of our population – signed up
to go overseas in just the first few months of the war alone.
We know about Cyril
Woodward: he was only 15 when he enlisted.
We know about the
Redford boys - 3 brothers who enlisted from our area. Edward, 29, was wounded by a shell that
killed 2 of his companions. William, age 19, was sent home when he was wounded
in combat and Douglas at age 20 was killed in action – never to come home
again.
The poet Charles Samuel
Bannell, in November of 1916 he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force
and less than a year later, on Oct 30th, 1917, he was killed in action.
From our roll of honour
at the legion: Private William Stewart, PPCLI, fought in the battle of
Frezenberg during the 2nd Battle of Ypres. He is buried in Ypres, Belgium. He
was 26.
Private William Clarke,
Son of Daniel and Laura Clarke, of Alberni, British Columbia. Served in the 7th
Battalion of the Canadian Infantry. In 1916 he was buried in Belgium at age 19.
And then after so much
loss, more was to come: the Second World War. Port Alberni again answered the
call and contributed greatly to the war effort. There are many who served.
There was Flight Lieutenant David Ramsay. He was awarded the Belgian Cross of
War in 1940 and on April 28th, 1944, he was given another cross, this one on
his grave. He was 23 years old.
There was also Jim,
Jack, John, Joe, Leo, Leonard, Nick and Dorothy Schan. Seven brothers and one
sister (4 connected to Pt Alberni) all enlisted in the military during the 2nd
World War. No family is believed to have contributed more soldiers to Canada's war
effort.
And then there was
Edward John Clutesi, born to be hereditary chief of the Tseshaht First Nation,
instead he gave his life for us in August 1944, in France, at age 26.
Hugh Patterson, the
uncle of one of our Legion Members, has his name on the honour roll of those
who never returned from the Second World War.
I have a story to read.
This one was handed to me on a piece of paper from another legion member. It is
about another war in another country from another time.
There was a captain
with an invading army. Through the night he heard the cries of a wounded
soldier in the distance. He didn’t know whether the solider was on his side or
the other. He eventually decided to risk his life to try to find and save the
soldier. He got to the soldier and the soldier was indeed one of the enemy but
-in a cruel twist of events- the soldier was also the captain’s own son. He did
not know his son was fighting for the other side. One can only imagine. His son
died. He requested a military funeral but that was denied. He was eventually allowed
to have a single bugler and the captain asked the bugler to play notes that
were written on a paper in his son’s pocket. That is the story of the origin of
the American version of ‘the Last Post’: music composed by a deceased
confederate soldier and played for the first time at a funeral performed by the
enemy who killed him -who also happened to be his family who loved him.
Many of us have friends
and family who left our community and our country only to be buried overseas or
to come back missing their friends who had. My grandfather served in World War
2 and my grandmother’s brother, who left the family farm to serve, never did
speak of the day they were surrounded by the enemy.
We have spoken briefly
today to honour some of those many young people who were loved by others here
in our community and who lived and died in the wars. There are many more
stories: of Canada’s then 11 million people, 45 400 of them died in World War
II. In World War I, from our population of just more than 7 million people, 61
000 gave their lives. If you were alive then, someone you knew and probably
someone you loved, died in the war. We are here to remember them today and we
are here to remember all of those who have died since that war, the war to end
all wars – and in the many wars that have followed.
Shortly after the world
war my grandfather was stationed in Pembroke, Ontario. One day, he sawed off
the butt of his rifle and made a cribbage board out of it. Many of his comrades
followed suit hoping that was now the best use for the rifles.
We can only hope and
pray that one day the real War to end all wars will finally be fought and we
will learn war no more. For it is only as we remember the tragedy of war and
the stories and lives of those who serve that we can possibly be willing to
fight for peace so that one day our young men and women will no longer be
compelled to go overseas to lay down their lives for us. Let we forget. Lest we
forget.
Let us pray: Almighty God, as You have gathered your people
together this day in hallowed remembrance, we give You thanks for all who laid
down their lives for our sake, and whom You have gathered from the storm of war
into the peace of Your presence. Let the memory of their devotion ever be an
example to us, that we at the last. Being faithful unto death, may receive with
them the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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