At first, I was like no way are we going to
be able to get out here.
There’s no way this is going to happen
and then you’re here and it’s like,
it’s a completely different experience.
You read about it in a book is one thing,
but when you go to the cemeteries and
the monument and you really see the true
event of what happened and you really get
a real understanding for what happened
here all those years ago.
And it’s an experience that you’ll never
have one like it, like this is exciting.
Coming here I can honestly say just
seeing all the Canadian flags in the towns,
it really makes me proud and I have a feeling
of pride now that I never had before that
I’m Canadian and I think I’m going to carry
that with me now through all my travels.
I am really going to be way more
patriotic because we are an amazing country
and I didn’t really realize that so it has
opened my eyes a lot.
My father and his were here one hundred years
ago on April 9th at the beginning of the attack.
You got to be forever thankful for the Veterans
and for fighting for this eh,
and keeping us in the state that we are at.
I sometimes feel guilty because I wasn’t in
during wartime and, you know, and to see
what’s happening there and to see the
sacrifice and hardship,
it’s from them that I got that.
And that makes you feel pretty humble.
My thoughts, of course, are with men who
died so that we could be free.
But especially with my wife’s great uncle
who died here 100 years ago yesterday and
he is buried down in the cemetery,
we are going to see the cemetery now,
but my daughter is extremely keen on this.
She’s the one that got us on this trip.
She organized the whole thing for us.
She has his medal, his picture so I am
taking back a pair of boots so that on
Remembrance Day when she sets
everything out, she’ll have these.
Honestly it’s an amazing experience to be here.
My mom’s been here I think like five times,
four times now and ever since she’s went
on her first trip I’ve always wanted to go
and experience this and now that I’m here
it’s just surreal to be here where all the
soldiers fought and many lost their lives.
It’s just amazing to think what they done.
It’s been an amazing experience to be
here for the 100th and what an honour.
The trip has gone extremely fast and it
seems like we just got here and we’re already
planning to go home but the reverence the
people of France has shown us and the support
and the number of Canadians who have
come over for this event is just staggering.
It was so emotional yesterday.
One thing that hit me very hard was when
at the end of the ceremony everyone sang
the Canadian anthem and just being in a
different country and hearing this large group
of people sing the anthem just made me
feel so proud to be from Canada.
There’s one story that is going to stay with
me forever and that’s when we were at
the Ring of Remembrance.
We stopped with a 97 year old World War II
Veteran that landed on D-Day and
we were talking with him.
And one of my friends asked him why?
Why would you join up? And a lot of
Veterans give the same kind of answer.
A lot of them don’t like to talk about things
because it brings up bad memories
so he just gave the regular answer,
“Oh I served my country,
I felt obligated, the thing to do.”
And then he, he was physically upset,
you could see something was moved in
him when she had asked him that.
And then a couple minutes later,
he gave her a different answer as the
conversation moved, he came back to it
and said, “I’m originally from Yugoslavia and
I immigrated to Canada and when I was
living in BC, I felt it was my duty,
if I wanted to call myself Canadian
to put on the uniform and earn it.”
And that touched the four of us
that were standing there.
Then he started to cry and we, of course,
it was just something that I had never seen
and something I might not see again and
it was emotionally touching for sure.
A message from the Government of Canada