The following are my remarks made at the service to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Captain Charles S. Rutherford earning his Victoria Cross:

Today, we gather to honour a great man and his actions – Capt Charles S. Rutherford and the actions for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1918 – 90 years ago. We are not gathered on the exact anniversary of him earning the VC but we are gathered mid way between  his actions of August 9th, which earned him a Military Medal and those of August 26, 1918 for which he received the Victoria Cross.

Charlie, as he was known, was born in this area, raised here, spent part of his working life here, retired here and is buried in Union Cemetery, just north of where we stand today. The Legion hall just east of here proudly carries his name and honours his memory. When Charlie passed away in June 1989 he was laid to rest with full military honours, the last VC holder from WW1. The Legion took part and was host to almost 400 who came to mourn.
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Well, yesterday was a beautiful clear day which allowed the Legion to carry out a parade and service to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the actions of Charles S. Rutherford in 1918. For the first time in I don’t know how long, the day went off without even as much as a rain shower, clear all day. A couple of clouds loomed while we were preparing to get underway but they moved on.

I was really pleased to learn that the group from CFB Trenton, the 429 Transport Squadron, is now liasoned with the Branch. That means that any time we’re looking for some support with a project we’re doing like parades or presentations to the school children we can call on them. The 429 Transport Squadron was first formed in 1942 and has eight battle honours from WW2.

They were briefly disbanded and absorbed into 436 Transport Squadron until last year when it was stood up to look after the Globemaster III planes the government bought to provide heavy lift capability when our forces are deployed around the world.

I digress from the commemoration service, I’ll post my remarks from the service in another post.

This past weekend was a very busy one at the branch. We had a lot of work to accomplish but thankfully, members stepped up and we got it done. That’s the wonderful thing about team work, everyone has something to contribute and the sum of those ’somethings’ usually equals success.

I ended the weekend with some very sore feet. My trusty pedometer tells me that over the course of the last three days I’ve walked about 25,000 steps, mostly on cement floors. I’d like to do about 10,000 steps a day but on better surfaces than cement which is murder on the feet, legs and back. I’m thinking tomorrow might be a wonderful day to just stay at home. It is supposed to be really hot so that is even more reason to hole up inside where it is cool and quiet. Read the rest of this entry »

They shall grow not old, as we who are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them

In memory of our fallen Canadians:

Cpl. Brendan Anthony Downey – Afghanistan July 4, 2008
Pte. Colin William Wilmot - Afghanistan July 6, 2008

Always Caring — Always Canadian — Never Defeated

Support Our Troops — Wear Red on Fridays

Wow! Hard to believe that the year is officially half over. It seems that it was just a short time ago that I was writing that I wanted to make at least 300 more posts here this year. Oh, does appear that isn’t going to happen. Not unless I’m planning on two to three posts a day here for the rest of the year. I’m NOT!

Canadians, of which I’m one of course, celebrated Canada Day yesterday. The Branch held a BBQ to mark the day which included swearing in two new members, good food (and drink), a cake cutting and minnow races for the big kids (adults). We had intended the minnow racing for the children but none showed up so the big kids got to play. Great fun was had by all.

I’m proud to be a Canadian even though it took me a long time to come to understand that I had a country to be proud of. Some of that was the lack of having any pride of country instilled in us as kids in school. In my generation, at least in the rural schools that I attended, it was just sort of taken for granted sort of ‘yeah you’re Canadian, so what’ attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, winter is almost over and true to form, I have been battling a cold that went into bronchitis. It has been a miserable 2 weeks or so. I think I’m slowly starting to see the tail end of it as my voice comes back to normal and I try to regain my energy so I can actually accomplish something.

Thursday I ventured out to do some much needed errands (cats thought that running out of their food was not funny) and tired myself out pretty good. So, today I spent mostly trying to rest and doing some light chores around the house.

I have been reading a very interesting ebook while I’ve been taking it easy. It is written by a lady doctor who talks in pretty simple and straightforward way about how the toxins which build up in our systems can actually be causing some of the struggles with weight that people like myself have. What she writes makes a lot of sense. My sister and I have been discussing the contents of the book back and forth and we both agree that we need to take some steps to change our eating habits and this book is a good place to start. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m writing the original version of this post by hand today. You know, using the old fashion stuff — pen and paper. I managed to leave the power cord for my laptop at work last night and while I have a desktop system, it likes to shut itself off on a regular basis. If I write and then transcribe I make better use of computer time.

Normally, doing something like leaving the power cord behind would have prompted me to turn round and go back for it. That may have proved foolhardy last night knowing that another winter storm was bearing down on us in southern Ontario. Actually, I should say, bearing UP on us as it is coming out of the US. And you Americans think we send you the cold weather! Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it does appear that once again there has been a gap in postings. In the interim, I have been rebuilding the hard drive on my laptop as I had to replace it. What a bloody pain installing the software all over again! Remembering all those must have pieces of software that were on the original drive is damn hard.

Then, when it appeared that I had almost reached the end of the job, my internet satellite connection decided that it wanted to mess up. See, around the time that I was busy rebuilding the drive we had some nasty winter weather which involved some very high winds. My house is rather heavily insulated so, it takes a lot to actually cause me to hear the wind in the house. This time, the wind was heavy enough that Dawn, my cheeky young cat, was spooked by it. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally! For the first time since December 30th this blog doesn’t carry a memorial post at the top of the listings. That means that for the last 10 days no Canadian soldier has given his/her life in service to us. Our 2500 troops in Afghanistan have stayed safe and most importantly, we along the Highway of Heroes have not made anymore trips to the bridges. Continue to be safe guys and gals, you’re service is appreciated.

I spent yesterday at the Legion. We had our monthly brunch on which moved from brunch into an afternoon of an informal jam session in the clubroom. We had an unadvertised special featuring a hot roast beef plate for $5. The plate gave you a full dinner. Since we had to cancel the roast beef dinner on Friday evening, the meat was all cooked and we did up some potatoes and veggie to complete the plate and of coursed topped with beef gravy. Read the rest of this entry »

Man, I’m not doing very good on my goal of 300 more posts on this blog by the end of the year. A month has gone by already and all that I’ve posted has been memorial posts for Canadians killed in Afghanistan. We’ve lost five Canadians since Christmas, there have been four trips to the bridge made for them.

I’m praying we get past today and tomorrow so I can finally release the last one memorial from the top of the page and not have to replace it with a new one. Like the flag at the Branch, the memorial posts stay at the top of my blog until ten days has passed since the soldier died.

I started posting them after a big hoopla in Canada because the government halted the practice of lowering the flag on the peace tower when a soldier died. I decided that if we really wanted to show how much we cared, bloggers in particular could put their actions where their words were and put a post at the top of their blog. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspite of bitterly cold weather yesterday afternoon myself and a surprisingly good number of people were out on the Herley St. bridge a Colborne to pay our respects to Gunner Dion and his family as they made the sad trip with his remains from CFB Trenton to Toronto.

One of the local snowplows joined the fire service and EMS vehicles with their lights flashing on the bridge. The plow had cleared the snow from the walkway over the bridge allowing those of us who turned out to stand on the walkway instead of climbing over snowbanks.

As I stood on the bridge with the wind occasionally nipping at the back of my head, my gaze to the east watching for the flashing lights of the motorcade my thoughts went to the footage I watched on Monday morning of hundreds of troops on a tarmac in bitterly cold Kandahar solemnly saluting Gunner Dion as he started his journey home.

While I’m saluting his service and sacrifice on a bridge over the Highway of Heroes in Ontario and wondering how many more of those troops will come home this way I can’t help but think that some of those troops saluting their fallen comrade allowed themselves the question “Will I be next?”

Stay safe those who serve so selflessly for us.