A member of a Veteran’s advocacy group is reminding us that Vets come from all generations as Remembrance Day approaches.
Marc Burchell is with the Canadian Walk for Veterans, an annual event that goes every September and said we still have military deployed all over the world serving our country. “People forget the longest war we ever fought in was the Afghan war and we have Veterans as young as in their early twenties and early thirties.”
“One of the Vets that I work with, in his early thirties, he has veteran plates on his car and people continually ask him ‘Why do you have Veteran plates on your car?’ because they think it’s pretty much people from previous generations that would be a Veteran.”
Burchell says our military presence continues worldwide, “The conflicts that that Canada participates in, they’re not over, we still have peace keepers all over the world.”
UN peace keeping is one of the most treacherous jobs for the Canadian military according to Burchell. “The role of the Peace Keeper is even more dangerous than some of the wars we’re fought in because they go into some of the most dangerous places in the world and in many cases they’re not allowed to fire their weapons in times of conflict.”
“So, we have to remember that these are not days of the past, we still have our military deployed all over world serving our country and serving the world.”
29 year old Corporal James Choi, of New Westminster, was killed a training exercise last week in Alberta making him the most recent Canadian to die on duty. “You know we lose people in our military all the time but certainly we should be remembering him at this time.”
“But him and everybody else, they are the heroes that travel to foreign lands and here. I’ve known of other military who are killed during training incidents.”
“You know, they put their lives at risk the minute they join the armed forces in a variety of ways and we just have to remember them and thank them at least one or two days a year, we would hope.”
“One during the Canadian Walk for Veterans and one on Remembrance Day.”
Burchell says Canadians shouldn’t lose sight of our gratitude. “We live the the greatest country in the world and I think sometimes we maybe take that for granted but we have to reflect and think about those who put their lives on the line to give us that amazing Canadian way of life that we all enjoy.”
