There are some 100 veterans’ graves in Williams Lake’s cemetery and ahead of Remembrance Day the 3064 Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps helped mark their tombs.
On Saturday, Nov. 10 in the chilly morning air close to a baker’s dozen of army and junior cadets walked among the Williams Lake Graveyard. Their mission, to find and mark the graves of as many veterans as possible with a white handmade wooden stake.
Captain Bill Sheridan of the cadet instruction cadre, himself a military veteran, said these actions were all about honouring and respecting the fallen. Sheridan and another veteran in town had come last year to count and locate veterans in the Williams Lake Cemetery and were surprised to find 100, of which two are of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission variety.
“Both men are buried here in Williams Lake and served and died during the war. What’s really amazing is the fact we see these types of graves over in Europe and in Asia where World War One and Two happened but we don’t think of them being here, at home, in Canada or even in our own community,” Sheridan explained.
As a part of Veterans Week leading up to Remembrance Day, Sheridan said that it was important to mark these graves to remember both those who put their lives on the line and those who ultimately laid them down. Many of the veterans were RCMP officers but according to Sheridan, there are also two international war graves, one from the U.S. and one from the U.K.
“I think (marking these graves) is valuable because it passes on to the next generation the importance of remembering our war vets and not just our war vets but all veterans in particular,” Sheridan said. “So they can take on their mantle. You look at that quote from John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields: ‘To you, from failing hands, we throw the torch.’ That’s what we’re looking at, we’re passing the torch onto the next generation so that these veterans here and across the country are never forgotten.”
Read More: Remembrance Day ceremonies Sunday, Nov. 11
Sheridan thinks a visit to the graveyard to honour these veterans is especially important this year, being both the 100 year anniversary of Armistice that ended the First World War, but also now approaching the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in June that ultimately saw an end to Nazi Germany.
“Just give a couple of minutes to overlook and say thank you. We take out freedom sometimes for granted and it’s kind of a humbling experience to see how many people in our community have and still are laying their lives on the line for our freedoms and democracy,” Sheridan said.
The endeavour was a collaborative one, with Sheridan’s wife and commander of the junior cadets Crystal Sheridan handcrafting the stakes with her cadets. Using wood donated by Windsor Plywood while the paint and varnish were donated by Rona. While she did her best, this year she ran out of time to make 100 wooden markers but intends to have one for every veteran next year.
For some of the cadets, like junior cadet Chloe Bennetts, the grave marking was personal. Bennetts grandfather Cropley L Weldon, himself a veteran, is buried in the cemetery and she got to mark his grave with one of the stakes. Bennetts said that her grandfather was a driver of a tracked lightly armoured Bren Gun Carrier, otherwise known as a Universal Carrier, across enemy lines during the fall of Germany.
A workhorse for the Commonwealth Forces, Bren Gun Carriers became ubiquitous on the battlefield carrying men, mortars, machine guns, supplies and anything else the army needed into and out of battle. All were outfitted with its namesake, a Bren light machine gun while some included a mortar and a Boys anti-tank rifle.
While Bennetts never knew her grandfather, who passed in 1988 from natural causes, her mother remembers and continues to pass on his story to her daughter. For both of them it means a lot to be able to tangibly mark his grave as a veteran.
“People fought in the war for us and helped us have our freedom in Canada,” Bennetts said. “(Marking his grave) means everything. It means I can be here, like, my grandpa is probably, like, if he’s in Heaven, he’d probably be standing right here.”
Bennetts intends to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and fight for Canada and help the world be it in the army, the RCMP or the air force.
For now, though, this junior cadet simply looked forward to becoming a full army cadet.
patrick.davies@wltribune.com
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