Fergus Royal Canadian Legion Branch 275 president Ray Pearse used this year’s Remembrance Day service to bring home the importance of remembering those who have served Canada.
Many students from local schools were at the service as Pearse addressed them directly.
“I want to talk to the children again this year. The rest of you can just listen.”
Pearse said, “Here we are again young people. You’re here, and you all have poppies on … I can see them.”
He asked them if they knew the significance of the poppies they wore. Pearse explained the little black spot in the poppy represented death.
“Y’know, we all gotta die sometime, but on Remembrance Day we remember all the young people who died.” He added, “Some of them were not much older than you. Many of them were between 17 and 40 years old.”
“That’s not very old, when you look at people like myself,” Pearse said. “Those young people went away to a war that they really didn’t know what they were getting into. They fought that war to get peace.”
He said, “You now have peace, you have freedom and you have the right to say what you want. You have that because these young people fought and died.”
Pearse said Remembrance Day is about remembering all veterans.
“We have veterans from many different wars.”
He noted some of the wars involving Canada over the past 110 years include the Boer War, the First World War, the Korean War, the Second World War, the Cold War and the Afghanistan War.
“Unfortunately people died in each one of those wars. We hope and pray and ask God not to have any more wars. We don’t want our young people going off to war and ending up dead. We just pray that wars are all over.”
Pearse thanked God for bringing the Afghanistan soldiers back this year.
He noted a few have remained behind to help those people.
“Just remember what Remembrance Day is and why you are standing here.”
He added that on Dec. 8, the Fergus Royal Canadian Legion will be hosting the Portrait of Honour.
The 40-foot long mural contains images of every Canadian soldier, sailor and any Armed Force personnel killed in Afghanistan.
“It has been travelling around the country.”
On Dec. 10 the mural will return to Cambridge, with its second last stop in Fergus.
“I hope each of you come and see this portrait. It is worth seeing. It will be on view from 11am throughout the day.”
A dinner will be held at the legion later that day – “the money raised goes to a good cause,” he added.
