Ideas - Pt 2: Acts of Remembrance: Canadian Veterans Share Postwar Experiences

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Canada’s veterans have a conflicted relationship with Remembrance Day, an idea that may be shifting as older war vets leave us. In a two-part series, IDEAS continues exploring postwar experiences from The Canadian War Museum’s oral history project called In Their Own Voices. *This is part two of a two-part series.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. In Flanders fields, the poppies blow. Between the crosses, row on on row that mark our place. And in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly, scarce heard amid the guns below. the guns below. In Flanders Fields, John McRae wrote his iconic poem on the battlefield in 1915, a day after one of his closest friends was killed and hastily buried among the wild poppies of Flanders

in Belgium. We are the dead. We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved. And now we lie in Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die,

we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields. In Flanders Fields, read by Leonard Cohen, courtesy of Legion Magazine. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. And welcome to the second of two programs based on the Canadian War Museum's oral history project entitled In Their Own Voices. I want to talk to you a little bit about your post-war life, but I have to ask you, and I'd love to know more about D-Day. Can you tell me a little bit about that? So many years I tried to forget about the whole thing, and then all of a sudden they wanted me to remember.

Michael Petrou is a former journalist and war correspondent, and is now historian of veterans' experience at the museum. He interviewed more than 200 veterans or their families to document their deeply mixed experiences adjusting to life after combat, including their complicated relationship with Remembrance Day itself. Yeah, I think a thing to do is to be seen, to be remembering. I think it's sad when there aren't enough people out. I love it when we're selling poppies, and my friend and I'd be there,

and someone would come along and say, oh my gosh, those medals, are they ever beautiful? And I feel very conflicted about it. I feel kind of honored still that people would ask me to talk about my experiences and sort of read things I wrote about my experiences. And at the same time, Remembrance Day sometimes still makes me angry. This episode features excerpts from Michael's conversations with veterans, beginning with Benjamin Hertwig. Somewhere in Flanders, Afghanistan.

In Flanders fields, some shit went down. Flowers, crosses, the dead, etc., etc. But the dead do not speak, John. Sometimes they leave letters. Sometimes they leave a room full of porn and candy wrappers that someone else has to clean. Carthago de l'Ende est. Carthage must be destroyed. So on, so forth.

Benjamin Hertwig, reading his poem, Somewhere in Flanders, Afghanistan, a kind of retort to John McRae's In Flanders Fields. You served our country, whatever that means. But I'm tired of hearing you go on about birds and sunsets and torches and God knows what else. I'd rather meet your hundred-year-old ghost on Remembrance Day when everyone's drinking to forget the shit we volunteered to do in a country that wasn't our own. I'll buy you a beer, though I don't really drink much since my wife left. Don't sleep much either.

Nobody sleeps well after war. Did you ever start sleeping again? Yes, I would say that the nightmares I had after Afghanistan, which dominated my sleeping life for a number of years, that I don't have them as often, that they don't hold the same power or terror for me. I would say the energy of war, the sort of frantic, elevated physicality of it has never fully left. So I think I'm still the product of my experiences and sort of that the reality of war, I think, will always be a part of my waking and sleeping life. Benjamin Hurtwig left for Afghanistan in 2006 when he was 20 years old.

He came back a different person. Like many of us, Benjamin's memories of John McRae's poem date back to high school. I remember reciting it at the, it was either the grade 10 or grade 11 Remembrance Day ceremony at my school in uniform. Remembrance Day ceremony at my school in uniform. And I remember hearing the poem read after I returned from Afghanistan by a colonel in my regiment. And I remember hearing it after Afghanistan and feeling angry and angry at John McRae in some ways. at John McRae in some ways. Obviously, John McRae did end up dying in the war after he had written this poem. But I wanted to ask John McRae how he could speak in the voice of the dead. How do you know what the dead would say? I mean, you were very much alive when you wrote this poem. So how can you say we are the dead would say. I mean, you were very much alive when you wrote this poem. So how can you, how can you say we are the dead? These are the things that we wish to, to pass on to those who are living. And I carried that anger for a few years and stopped going to Remembrance Day ceremonies

and eventually thought, I'm, I'm going to write about this. And I want, these are some of the questions I wish that I could have asked John McRae. Benjamin Hertwig went on to write much more than somewhere in Flanders, Afghanistan. His early poems about contemporary warfare became a book entitled Slow War, shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Awards. He taught a creative writing course designed with veterans in mind. He's also just published a novel exploring this soldier's experience. Did you start going to Remembrance Day again? Have I started going to Remembrance

Day ceremonies ever again? I have been asked to read at a few school Remembrance Day ceremonies, to read from this book of poems. And I feel very conflicted about it. I feel kind of honored still that people would ask me to talk about my experiences and sort of read things I wrote about my experiences. And at the same time, Remem remembrance day sometimes still makes me angry it still makes me uh i remember i went to one school uh in the vancouver area and the the students maybe 10 11 year old um and it was i think a boys school primarily. They were goofing around, fooling around,

not unlike a platoon of young soldiers and the teacher was getting very angry at the boys and they were playing with the candles and he said, stop playing with those candles. Those candles are each a dead soldier. And I thought, no, they're not. Those are candles and these are young boys and we were young boys and I feel more sympathy for the young boys playing around than I do with the teacher who's trying to tell the boys something about warfare and remembrance, which I'm not sure I fully believe.

I don't go to cenotaphs. I don't do much by way of those things, but I will seek out pockets of calm or quiet or ways to remember people in my life who've been impacted by war. So I still will think and pray about men from my platoon who died during and after the war, remember them in my own way. And, yeah, if I'm asked to read or talk about my experiences, I generally am happy to do that now too. What are the things you're not sure you believe anymore? What are you conflicted about yeah um i mean i i think maybe it's to my own personal relationship with remembrance day as

a young soldier which was very much about getting drunk um even before i had experienced any uh any combat or any violence and um just sort of sort of the feeling that there are, that you're being asked to feel a certain way or a member in a certain way, even if your feelings on a particular mission have changed or if you feel like even as the war in Afghanistan has now come full circle and Canadians have withdrawn. Tens of thousands of lives, both Canadian and Afghan have been lost.

And Afghanistan is once again under the control of the Taliban and wondering what function does remembrance play in what happened in Afghanistan? Are there healthy ways of remembering? Are there unhealthy ways of remembering? Are there ways of remembering that lead to further conflict? Are there ways of remembering that lead us away from conflict as a nation? So I think when I think of Remembrance Day,

sometimes it just feels sort of like a rote performance. Students reciting in Flanders Fields, even though they don't necessarily know what it means or why they're being asked to do this. You stayed involved in a lot of commemorative activities after the war, Remembrance Day, joined the Legion as well. Yep. Why? Why was that important to you? Oh, that was the most important thing because actually women had not been given a lot of credit. Blanche Bennett, 99 years old, is from Prince Edward Island. She served in the Canadian Women's Army Corps during the Second World War, during which she also met her husband, Murray.

After the war ended, Murray built a career in the military. She made something of a mission out of observing Remembrance Day. We were not really number one on the hit parade. You very rarely heard of having a big dinner at the Legion for the women. No way. But there was always a dinner for the men. And sometimes, if you were invited, I belonged to the Legion, you would go. But it was quite different.

The men won the war, actually. They were the ones fighting. But we did our part, and it is only in the last, oh, probably, I'm going to say 15, maybe 20 years, that people are really beginning now to remember that women did a whole lot in the war. A whole lot, not a little bit, a whole lot. The very fact that we were the first, the Army was the first, and then the Air Force and the Navy were lost. And yeah, we all had very important jobs. Why do you think it is that for so long women didn't get the credit that they deserved for

having served? Well, I guess unless you're in line of action and carrying a rifle, you know, and wanting to shoot somebody and whatever, that seemed to be the thing, and we certainly didn't do that. We were issued a rifle, but we only had it for rifle practice. We didn't carry it. We had gas masks. We certainly wore them all the time and had lots of blackouts. My goodness, almost every night you'd have a blackout,

and that meant the whole city was black. It just seemed to be that we were not as important. War is a man's thing. You know, it's not something that women get armed for and go overseas to shoot somebody. That's not what we do. So did you join the Legion hoping to change some of these attitudes? I did, and I did.

How? Well, number one, I decided, you know, there's a lot of stuff that I can do. And so first it was selling poppies. I sold poppies until I think I was 95. And we would go to the schools and talk to the children. And it was great for us because Murray and I and Barbara, our daughter, were all veterans, and that was great. And the boys especially were really keen, wanting to know, first thing they asked my husband, how many guys did you kill? And I said, I didn't kill anybody, but that's

what they, you know, that's how they felt, but that's how they felt, and that's all they knew about the war, was that war meant you had a gun and had to kill somebody. I did an article for the newspaper on that, and I said every young lad from the age of 14 or 15 should be given a chance to go overseas

to visit the graves as we did and have a look at the names and the ages on those tombstones and I think their way of thinking would be and the ages on those tombstones. And I think their way of thinking would be a lot different when they came back.

What is it that you want them to understand about the war and about being a veteran as well? Well, you kind of have to keep your nose clean if you want to stay out of war. But once you get in it, yeah, it's a big challenge. Nobody should ever have to go through a war. We did three or four in a very short time. I hope for the last one I'm saying. I don't think we'd ever have another one. I did not want them to go to Afghanistan.

I definitely would have made a lot of noise about that because I didn't think we had any business to go there. When we were in France for three years we visited every grave that we could, where the Canadians were buried. It was unreal. The first time, it was just, it just made tourniquet cold.

It was so awful to see. But they are so well looked after, especially the ones in Holland, and yeah, it was something. Oh, we also went to Vimy Ridge, and that was an experience. Went down in the trenches, and the kids, my kids, were just little. I think Barb was six. Patty was eight. It was only two years between the three of them, and so they were quite young.

They remember everything. What would you talk about when you talked about the war with your kids? What did they want to know, and what did you tell them? Well, Murray had a great tale. He used to say, now you be kind to your mother because she wore army boots. I thought, oh, Murray, you've got to come up with something better than that. Anyway, yeah, it meant a lot to them. I don't think they ever bragged about it or said, geez, my mother was in the war. But I'm sure when they were with their friends, they did say that. What does it mean to you to have served?

When you look back now and you think about your service, how do you feel about it? Well, right now, I'm on top of the world. Like, I'm the queen of the whole nine yards here. Because there's so few of us left, you know. And I think, oh, my God. When they come in my room and they see all my pictures hanging there and uniform and all that stuff, you know, they say, God, what did you do? And I say, well, I don't think I did a lot, but at least I served.

And Remembrance Day, I did put the wreath on a couple years ago for the lady veterans. Yeah, there's always something that comes up, you know, and to remind you. I have another, maybe another big question. It might be hard to answer, but, you know, you have had special and unique experiences, and I just, I'm wondering, are there things about being a veteran of the Second World War that you don't think a lot of people understand,

and you would like them to understand what that's like? That is exactly what I would like everybody to know. I'd like them all to know that, yes, in 1942, when the women became available to join the service, we did. Nobody asked us. Nobody asked us. Nobody told us. We did it on our own. We chose what we wanted to do.

There were lots of jobs open. You choose the one you want. Driver, telephone operator, typist, whatever you wish. And we did. Just did what had to be done, and you went and did it. That was brought home to me again a few years ago when we flew to Ottawa, and we were asked to wear our medals, which we did.

And when we were getting off the aircraft, the pilot was standing at the door who happened to be a woman. And I thought, oh my gosh, she has been flying this airplane. So, you know, they always talk to you, shake hands or whatever. And she said, you were in the military. And I said, yes, a long time ago. And I said, a very long time ago. And she said, my dear, she gave me such a hug. If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't be doing this job today. And I thought, oh my gosh. So I guess we did something that we should be proud of. I like to think we did.

And I'd love it if everybody else thought the same. I think many people do. Yep. Yep. And I'd love it if everybody else thought the same. I think many people do. Yep. Yep. Second World War veteran Blanche Bennett, 99 then, in conversation with Michael Petrou, historian at the Canadian War Museum. You're listening to Ideas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, on World Radio Paris, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also find us on the CBC News app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kathleen Goltar, and I have a confession to make.

I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and, most of all, true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. In 2022, the Canadian War Museum began an oral history project aimed at recording the experiences of veterans in their own voices.

Michael Petrou leads the project and spoke with veterans of all of Canada's wars, focusing on the profound changes that came after they returned home. Michael Petrou joins me now. Now that you've spoken to so many people about Remembrance Day, how has your concept of Remembrance Day changed? So Remembrance Day has always been important for me. My grandfather served in the Second World War. So it was something that I attended since I was young and has been important to me for those reasons. And as a historian and as a journalist, I've always had an interest in the way that war has impacted the Canadian society.

And I've appreciated the need to remember some of those sacrifices. But even with that background, it does feel much more immediate and personal for me as well, or for me now, just because I've had these long, sometimes difficult, always revealing conversations with people, and we've talked about remembrance. So it's become, there are now dozens, hundreds of these stories that I think about now in a way that I wouldn't have three or four years ago. I think it's changed as well that I have an appreciation for the many layered meanings that Remembrance and Remembrance Day can have for veterans in a way that perhaps I didn't before. I don't think I appreciated before this project how difficult Remembrance can be.

That's been a revelation for me over the course of these last two years and these interviews is how complicated I think some of the feelings around Remembrance Day can be for veterans. And yet, you know, it is a national day of remembrance. And so Canadians are called on to remember. Could you speak to, despite that difficulty for some of the veterans, why a number of others still want us to remember on this day? I think for a lot of veterans, their service was the most important, the most searing, the most sad, the most, something they're the most proud of. It was and it is important. And when you combine the

intensity of that experience and the importance for good or for ill of memories surrounding those experience, and then you contrast that with the day-to-day life where most people don't know or understand or want to understand, you do have that one day where that changes. So I do understand the desire and I think it's well-founded that those sacrifices are acknowledged. I should say, just to reflect wholly what I've heard in these interviews, is I do recall one veteran of Afghanistan, you know, talking about that gap between the public understanding of conflict and the price that it extracts. acts and following that by saying, that's a good thing. Like he said, I want to live in a society where most people don't need to think about these things. Most people don't have those memories. And I think that's, I think that's an important element as well. Um, the fact that most of the time we in Canada don't need to think about conflict, the fact, the fact that most of the time we in Canada don't need to think about conflict, the fact that most of us don't have direct experience of conflict, that makes us extraordinarily lucky. We're calling this episode Acts of Remembrance.

Here again is Michael, this time interviewing Anouk Bouvet, another veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Do you take part in Remembrance Day ceremonies like those on Remembrance Day? No, I'm not able to. Do you take part in Remembrance Day ceremonies like those on Remembrance Day? No, I can't. Yeah, I don't know. No, I can't anymore. I don't know. Sometimes I don't even put on the poppy either.

I don't feel the need to be there. I feel sometimes I don't even put the poppy on either. I don't feel the need to be there. I feel it. I remember it every day. Anouk Bouvet lost a friend, Jason Warren, during the war in Afghanistan in 2006. She deployed there herself in 2007. Every day I get up and I think about all that. All that time in the army. There's not a day that goes by when I don't have a moment when I think of all I experienced in the army.

What we had all gone through. Whether it was a hundred years ago or in Afghanistan. And yet I can't go to these ceremonies. I know there are some people who might find it therapeutic to go. For me, it's the opposite. I'd rather go to the cemetery alone to see Jason's grave every July than show up in parades. I don't feel it. I can't. Could you explain to me a little more what is it exactly that is so difficult? There's music that is always played at the ramp ceremonies in Afghanistan. I can't listen to it anymore. The sounds of the bagpipes, everything that reminds me of the dead, in fact, over there in Afghanistan.

It brings out emotions that I may not yet want to delve into. I'm also doing a bit of avoidance. I don't feel the need to be with people. I don't want to go to be with people to talk about our war stories. I feel personally I'm not there yet, or maybe I never will be. I feel personally I'm not there yet, or maybe I'll never be. You said you remember every day. What do you remember? What are you thinking about?

I remember Afghanistan like it was yesterday. I remember emotions or feelings. I have a lot of dreams. It's not necessarily nightmares, but I dream a lot, which takes me back to a lot of the feelings and emotions from before. Sometimes it's just a flash. You're going through your day, and now you're thinking about the day we were bombed.

I have another question about Afghanistan. I have another question about Afghanistan. So we're talking in January 2023, and a little over a year ago, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. How has that affected your thinking about your service and sacrifice? I'm going to be really honest.

When it happened, I thought, well, I knew that from the start. Having spent almost three years there and at the end I left, I was like, we got it wrong. It's not sustainable. I wasn't surprised. I had no emotions, unlike a lot of veterans who found it really difficult. About two, three weeks ago, when I read that the Taliban had, that women could no longer work for NGOs or attend universities, that seemed to hit me. I was like, what's going on?

What's going on? That's not good. That's crazy. That's what hit me most. I was so sad for these women. I find it sad for those people. We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved. And now we lie in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields. Remembrance Day, 2024. It's been nearly 80 years since the Second World War ended, yet 40 veterans from that war were still able to speak with Michael. One of them is Fraser McKee. He joined the Navy on his 18th birthday and served in the Second World War on convoy escort duty. You personally mark Remembrance Day now, 70, 75, 80 years later.

What is it that you remember then? Well, that's what I remember, that there are people involved. It's not just a war, the Japanese taking over islands in the Pacific or the Germans occupying France, the coastal France, or running extermination camps or something like that. There are actually people involved. And if you were unfortunate or fortunate, depending on how you look at it, you knew some of them.

And then suddenly you realize that that's what happens with the war, that people you know and people that have lives and were going to do do all right and for themselves probably they're suddenly not there they're lost and their family have lost them they've lost somebody and that's what that's what remembrance is about remembering that there are people involved and that's what you remember. Do you take part in Remembrance Day ceremonies? Yes. Have you always?

Not always, no. I go to Upper Canada College every year. I've been going, always. I've been busy sometimes, or away or something like that. But I go out nearly every year. And all I do is walk down the aisle and sit at the front and they say, we have some veterans here from the war. And it gets us to stand up.

And I place one of the wreaths usually, or a'm the only I'm the only wartime one left now my even my friends have pretty well all died but yeah I do I do that and then I was on Remembrance Day itself that was on school day was on a Thursday the Memorandum Day was Saturday or Sunday I forget Saturday and I was at the one in Clarkson Mississauga, placed the wreath there that day. Yeah, I think, a thing to do is to be seen to be remembering. I think it's sad when there aren't enough people out and people come over.

I went into a coffee shop on the way home from one of these one time and I just went up and I guess I still had my medals on. I think I still had them on when I went to Tim's and went to get a coffee and a donut. And a girl, a nice looking girl, standing beside me said, are you a veteran? I said, yes, I've been at the Remembrance Day service. She said, let me buy you a coffee. I want to thank you. I said, I understand. She said, no, no, you like to do it. That really affected me that she said, thank you for, I mean, you know, I didn't do anything.

I didn't kill any Germans. I didn't fight anybody off. All I did was my job. And yet she was thanking me on her behalf. That's rather nice, you know. And you get a reward like that. That's very much a reward. And that's only happened once, that one time.

I've had people say thank you, but the first time anybody's actually done something like that, they didn't know me from Adam, just standing beside her in the lineup at Tim's or something. How did that feel when she made that offer? It had a big effect on me, just at the moment. And in general effect, it had quite an effect on me just at the moment and in general effect. It had quite an effect on me because it meant that there were people out there

that felt you had done something for them and that you weren't leading just an ordinary life in your own little tunnel by itself. It connects you with the world at large. I think that's it as much as anything else. Does how you reflect on your own service or how you feel about Remembrance Day, has it changed over the years? Is it different now? You know, almost?

Yes, it's changed, but the change is what happens is it gradually disappears into the fog a bit. It's like driving across the country and you start to the sunny day and the weather is lovely and it's the kind of atmosphere you like to be in and gradually it gets hazier and cloudy and not quite as nice and it's just country to pass through and I think that's too bad. I think that that's why it's necessary for those of us like me that go to, that's why I go to Upper Canada College, just to let these the six or seven hundred students that are in the Great Hall there, in the Lawson Hall at Upper Canada, to see a veteran. I'm not showing off at all. I don't have enough

medals. There are others that have far more medals than I do. I only got a few. But I want them to see there are people that went out and did something, not for us, but for themselves, for the country as a whole. It's my service to the country to some extent. I want to talk to you a little bit about your post-war life, but I have to ask you, and I'd love to know more about what you remember about D-Day. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Actually, I remember sailing over that part.

That's still quite clear, you know. We were doing all the little things like playing cards and sort of on the way over anything to kill time. Second World War veteran Russell Kaye, speaking with Michael about his memories of D-Day. I remember getting in within range of the beaches, and that's when we started hearing the gunfire, all kinds of gunfire, aircraft, explosions. There was all kinds of fire being from our barges. Our own guns were fired on the way in, right off our barges. Our own guns were fired on the way in right off of the barges.

Things like that. That stuff I remember. And there was so much confusion in that stuff, you forget a lot of other stuff. But I remember landing. I actually went in myself with the Winnipeg rifles. I was artillery, but I went landing. I actually went in myself with the Winnipeg rifles.

I was artillery, but I went in. We had Winnipeg rifles on our barges with us. That's some of the infantry units. And I remember going in with them, and I remember being on the beach, and I remember seeing German soldiers. And as a matter of fact, the German soldier come up by me with a wheelbarrow with there was another German in the wheelbarrow all shot up I didn't know they were Germans until they get up right beside me and then I seen a

swastika on their hat I knew I knew then that they were German prisoners, POWs. So they asked me for a cigarette. The guy wheeled me over and asked me if he could have a cigarette. I gave him a cigarette and then I directed him over. There was other German prisoners there too. So I directed him over where they were. Stuff like that I do remember. Late in life,

he was invited to return to France to visit for the first time since the war. Can I ask you about your 2019 trip to France? What was that like for you? That was great.

I didn't want to go on that. I didn't have no intention whatsoever. But they talked me into going. And I went with this group called the Wounds Warriors Association, which is an absolutely great, great group. And they sort of sponsored me. And it was actually one of the highlights of my life, I would say, going over there and retracing this, going back to the areas where we had fought and meeting people.

I met a lot of citizens over there, French citizens that were kids when we were there. Now they're out in their 60s, 70s. And they all have little stories to tell too. Well, why didn't you want to go? I really was trying to forget everything about the whole thing, about the past, about the war.

I was, I was sick. So many years I tried to forget about the whole thing about the past, about the war. I was, I was sick. So many years I tried to forget about the whole thing, and then all of a sudden I, they wanted me to remember. Why did you want to forget it for so many years? I don't know. It's just something that I didn't think about too often, or I sort of buried it, I guess. Did you join the Legion or take part in Remembrance

Day services? Yeah, I was still a member of the Legion and I have quite a... Remembrance Day services here are usually conducted by myself and there's another guy here and uh we conduct the uh the member state services here why why is it important for you to do that i think everybody wants us to do that a lot of the people we go to the schools here too and we did before the pandemic. I think they all like to hear the stories and, you know, be reminded of what the war is like. There's not much good about a war that's mostly bad, but it's good to know about it. What about you?

People want to hear from you, but why are you willing to, or why do you lead these services, and why do you speak to school children? I think it's important that they should know. I really do. I think it's important that the kids are always avid and willing to learn. They want to know. are always evident and willing to learn. They want to know. I want them to know the many things about war, that, you know, the cost, the cost in life, the cost in everything, especially the cost in life and the waste of, you know, the futility of war. There's so many other ways to solve problems rather than shoot each other.

Russell Kay spoke with Michael Petru in 2022. Two years later, in August 2024, Russell passed away. He was 100 years old. That same month, Blanche Bennett from PEI also died. She was 101. Given what you heard from the different kinds of veterans, does Remembrance Day, is it poised to change as we lose the veterans of World War II? When I started this project in 2022, I thought maybe I'd be lucky to get one or two interviews

with Second World War veterans. And I had low expectations for what those interviews might entail. I never would have imagined that I would interview more than 40 veterans of the Second World War. I never would have imagined how profound, how intimate, how revealing they were. And having experienced that and having been exposed to these conversations with veterans in the Second World War has just made me so much more aware of what we're losing. And a number of the veterans, the Second World War veterans that I interviewed over the last two and a half years have died. And I feel that loss profoundly, sometimes personally, because these are people that I felt quite close to, even if they were just short interviews. But the loss is,

if they were just short interviews. But the loss is, or the sense of loss is largely because I'm aware of what they represent. And they represent the last living link to a very important part of our history, the history of Canada, of the world, this massive confrontation and victory over fascism. And that was a tremendous thing. And to lose that as we are every day, it hurts. It hurts us as a country. It hurts us as a people. We are losing that link, and I do feel it. And it's a loss. It's a very special thing. On a personal level, simply having that experience has been enormously rewarding for me to have those conversations.

been enormously rewarding for me to have those conversations. And I'm sure there are listeners that still have that opportunity, uh, with living relatives, uh, but hold onto it and, uh, take advantage of it because it is, it is slipping away. And, and, and when it does go, when we do lose those, that last link, we're losing something very important, and that loss is profound. Do you think that that loss will alter the meaning that we should derive or what we do on Remembrance Day? I don't think it should. We still live in the shadow of the Second World War.

We still live in the shadow of the Second World War. We still live in the shadow of the First World War. I don't necessarily mean shadow in a bad sense. I mean, Nala, you and I were both journalists. We covered the Middle East for years. And I sometimes joke that all I was doing when I was reporting for the Middle East was covering the ongoing aftermath of the First World War. Yeah. And we were. It's true.

We still live in a world that was shaped by that conflict. We still live in a world that was shaped by the Second World War. So the victory over fascism in the Second World War, with all the costs associated with it. The importance of that shouldn't change, and recognizing or remembering the importance of that should not change. But of course it will. Of course it will as we lose these living bridges to that time. I grew up at a time when Second World War veterans were not a rarity.

My children are growing up in a time when they may never meet, or at least knowingly meet, a veteran of the Second World War. And their experience and their memories of Remembrance Day and what that means will be very different than mine and of my generation. So yes, I suppose that that personal connection, that living memory is changing and that will shift how we as Canadians experience Remembrance Day. But I don't think the importance of what it means, and specifically what the Second World War means, should change. And I hope people are able to, especially younger people, are able to apply some of those lessons

and recognize the importance of that confrontation with fascism in our current world today as well. I'm wondering what you will most remember after all those conversations on this day. All the conversations that I've had with veterans and their loved ones, regardless of their age or where they served, have moved me and in sometimes subtle and in sometimes more pronounced ways have shaped me as well. I've been changed and I've been shaped by this experience too. But I think on Remembrance Day this year, what I am most keenly aware of is that we're losing the Second World War generation. So I think what is top of mind for me now is what an unexpected joy and privilege it was to be able to have those conversations. And feeling that loss or that bittersweet awareness that this is something that I'll never have again.

And sadly, in a few years, no one else will be able to have again either. And it's been just such a rewarding experience to have those conversations. So what's top of mind for me on Remembrance Day is it's gratitude. It's gratitude to have had these conversations with these people. And it's gratitude to have had these conversations personally. And then it's gratitude on a broader level because of what they did and what I and all of us owe them as a result. Michael, thank you for this conversation and also thank you for what you've done. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure to talk about it. Thank you. You've been listening to Acts of Remembrance, the second of two episodes based on interviews with Canadian war veterans conducted by historian Michael Petrou. Audio clips were generously provided by the Canadian War Museum as part of the In Their Own Voices project,

a collection of more than 200 interviews with veterans or family members. For more interviews and photographs, visit the Canadian War Museum's website, warmuseum.ca, or visit our website, cbc.camuseum.ca or visit our website www.cbc.ca Many thanks to Michael Petrou, Avery Gibbs Lamy and the entire team at the Canadian War Museums Project as well as all the veterans who appeared

in this episode. This episode was produced by me, Nala Ayed with help from Matthew Lazen-Ryder. Our technical producer is Danielle Duval. Our technical producer is Danielle Duval. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Senior producer, Nikola Lukšić. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly.

And I'm Nala Ayed. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.