IN THIS ISSUE the Last Doughboy Granted Special Burial Rights
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Volume - 2 Edition 15 Week Ending April 19, 2008 IN THIS ISSUE The last doughboy granted · The last doughboy granted special burial rights. special burial rights. · Book Review: Where White Horses Gallop · Terrorism: We wildly overestimate the risk of being a victim, says Dan Gardner ... · Branch 50's "Legion IDOL" Starts Well · RCMP kept tabs on Canadian vets of Spanish Civil War · Legion Stabbing · Archive: Veteran Fights For Honour, Religion, · Branch 50's ROCKERS WIN B Division title at KWSL Playoff. · WWII Veteran Golf Legend Dies · Former British POW tells little-known side of Korean War · Windsor Memorial Vandalized · Legion official honoured · Auxiliary marks 50 years; Legion Branch 564 women remain active Arlington National Cemetery , United · Worse Than the Draft States federal burial ground in northeastern Virginia, administered by the · U.S. Estimate: 120 Veteran Suicides Per Week Department of the Army. The site, on the · Vet wrote on Forgotten War Potomac River across from Washington, · Troops’ care packages located D.C. , occupies 248 hectares (612 acres) · 'The war was imminent'; Jules Paivio's socialist ideals led him to fight in and contains the remains of more than Spain 240,000 veterans, their dependents, and · A Serb in Chalk River political leaders. Most of those buried in · Relatives of slain Canadian soldiers pay emotional visit to Afghanistan Arlington National Cemetery served in the · The Post editorial board on Rick Hillier: A soldier's soldier U.S. armed forces, and many were killed during battle. Among the monuments on · Bancroft Legion branch looks to council for help the grounds are the Tomb of the · Mitchell Legion urgenty needs executive help to keep doors open Unknowns (also called the Tomb of the · Sky’s the limit for Esquimalt Legion Unknown Soldier), the Arlington Memorial · One soldier's story Amphitheater, and Arlington House, the · Warehousing seniors is no solution former mansion of Confederate general · Few remain from the War to End All Wars Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Anna · Nov. 11 poem wins provincial recognition for PAMS student Randolph Lee. · Nurse to deploy to Afghanistan; KGH employee to treat wounded soldiers, Credit: www.usconstitution.com civilians AMERICA'S sole surviving veteran of · Nearly a fifth of Veterans report mental disorders World War I can spend eternity among · Luftwaffe pilot-turned-Canadian who performed an act of amazing grace, his brothers in arms after all, the U.S. dies. Army has decided in a welcome · Former Royal Canadian Legion Branch 52 President Dies. bending of military rules. · Canada's last First World War vet receives commendation · Government of Canada Encourages Canadians to Remember Frank Woodruff Buckles, 107, is one · Government of Canada Commemorates the 55th Anniversary of the Korean of only two survivors of the Great War War Armistice residing in the United States (the · Korean War memorial on Vancouver Island 'last big gathering, other, John Babcock, lives in Spokane, Wash., but is Canadian and served in the Canadian Army). In all, only about a dozen WW I veterans are still alive worldwide out of the more than 4.7 million Americans and more than 60 million European men and women who served. Mr. The Royal Canadian Legion, Fred Gies Branch 50 (Ontario) Page 1 WEBNEWS Volume - 2 Edition 15 Week Ending April 19, 2008 Buckles had to "increase" his age Book Review: Where White novel in part for Michael but also for all when he enlisted in April, 1917, and Horses Gallop Canadian men and women who have he served as a driver and warehouse served in the theatre of war. clerk in France and Germany. He did Readers are drawn into a time that not see combat. was simpler and yet more terrifying As a veteran of the "war to end all than these chaotic days, the days wars," he was already eligible for leading up to and following the cremation and placement in a Second World War. columbarium at Arlington but, The first Great War had scarred the according to the Associated Press, he remote community of Beinn Barra, did not meet the criteria for burial in with fathers and brothers and uncles the ground there. lost or who had returned home forever It was not until last year that his changed. Four young men, friends daughter discovered that the veteran since childhood — Benny Doucet, who wanted to be buried in the national can make a fiddle sing to the angels; cemetery. Friends of the family spent Hector MacDonald, fisherman with his months calling and veteran father; Calum MacPherson, e-mailing the Pentagon, the White detouring from medical school to House, and anyone else in serve his country; and Alex government they could think of, MacGregor, whose father was lost at Where White Horses Gallop by Beatrice seeking an exception to the rules that MacNeil (Key Porter, $32.95) sea — now face the prospect of going would allow the former doughboy - the to war themselves. last doughboy - to rest among his It’s long been against my way of doing Hector, Benny and Calum voluntarily fallen comrades. things to read reviews of works that go forth to battle, while Alex faces a Last month, their pleas were I’m asked to write about, because I host of different battles at home; all answered, and Mr. Buckles, who lives want to be utterly fair to the author and are casualties in their own distinct in Charles Town, W. Va., received an his or her work. This is especially ways, and their families likewise. official certificate signed by Lt. Gen. important if the author is one I’ve not Only Hamish, the disabled son of Ona David H. Huntoon, Jr., director of the reviewed before, or haven’t read and Joachim MacPherson, and Army Staff, and encased in a leather- before or recently. With Beatrice brother to Calum, dances through the bound book entitling him to a place MacNeil, I had enjoyed her earlier story unscarred, his joy a beacon of alongside generals (including John work, The Moonlight Skater, a hope. Oblivious to the horrors of war "Black Jack" Pershing, commander of collection of nine short stories and a or the damaged friends who do make U.S. forces in World War I), Medal of play called The Dream. But I read it home from the war, he is content to Honor winners, Supreme Court these years ago, and wasn’t prepared find delight in feathers and stones, justices, astronauts, and others. for the way I would be pulled so completely into the entrancing web sticks and the promise of a horse that Mr. Buckles, who was in the she weaves in her novel Where White Calum had said he’d bring to him Philippines when World War II broke Horses Gallop. when he came back from war. out on Dec. 7, 1941, and spent 39 Joachim instead carves a horse from months in a Japanese POW camp in Even without reading reviews to colour wood for Hamish, and in that carving Manila, met last month with President my perspective, there was a hint of he restores something of his own Bush and took part in a Pentagon what was to come in the words of wounded soul and his love for his wife. ceremony honoring veterans of the Alistair MacLeod on the book’s cover, MacNeil is a writer who knows well the Great War. where he says that MacNeil "has a brilliant insight into the souls of the nuances and politics of tightly knit And it is certainly our hope that he is wounded." Being an admirer of communities, and as the blurb by around to attend many more such MacLeod, I was intrigued by his MacLeod acknowledges, she knows events. He is, after all America's only praise; by the time I’d finished the the souls of the wounded, who take remaining direct, living link to that novel’s prologue, I was smitten with many forms. The elderly parish priest conflict. yet another fine Nova Scotian writer, doesn’t attend the village dances and frowns down from his house towards But it is good to know that when his and devoured the rest of the novel in the Saturday night revellers, who time comes, he will have an honored two evenings. stand "in a cluster of liquid place among America's heroes. Beatrice MacNeil’s late husband damnation"; yet he takes a wee drop Sunday, April 13, 2008 Michael B. MacDonald served with the himself to ease the ache in his bones, The Toledo Times Cape Breton Highlanders, and was "then a larger one to ward off eternal Section: Veterans decorated with the Distinguished damnation." Conduct Medal for bravery for his part, with his comrades, in the liberation of The elderly widows who attend every Holland. As she writes in her dance bring refreshments for the acknowledgements, she wrote this crowd and sip rum poured from a Page 2 The Royal Canadian Legion, Fred Gies Branch 50 (Ontario) Week Ending April 19, 2008 WEBNEWS Volume - 2 Edition 15 teapot in dainty teacups. Young Terrorism: We wildly travelling by car because of fear of women cast flirtatious glances at the overestimate the risk of being flying in that immediate post-9/11 young men, but many hearts are period -- six times the number aboard broken or loves left unrequited, while a victim, says Dan Gardner ... the three doomed airplanes and a little older loves first lose themselves in more than half of the total 9/11 death grief, then ultimately heal one another. toll. Politicians and media, says Gardner, Intrigued by her narrative skill, I asked have distorted and inflated the terrorist MacNeil whether or not she writes threat to score political favour and poetry because her words dance pander to audiences.