Belgium delivers unforgettable Remembrance Day for visiting Canadians

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YPRES, BELGIUM – The Remembrance Day ceremony at Menin Gate is absolutely unforgettable – it’s a special way to end a sombre week in a truly sacred place.

More than 5,000 people lined the streets of Ypres on Monday to honour the million or so soldiers from more than 50 countries who were wounded, went missing or were killed in Flanders Fields between 1914 and 1918.

And in the hearts and minds of a delegation of Indigenous leaders, representatives and family members of First World War soldiers visiting from Canada were the 30,000 Canadians killed in Belgium during what was at the time dubbed “the war to end all wars.”

“I found myself thinking of the veterans who fought in these lands, those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and are buried here,” Honorary Capt. Debbie Eisan, a Royal Canadian Navy veteran and Elder of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre in Halifax, N.S., said of attending the Menin Gate ceremony for the first time.

“But also I was thinking about our Afghanistan veterans and our Cold War veterans, people who I served with.”

She said some of those military members have struggled in the wake of deployments and some have died.

“So, this is a time when we have to remember and celebrate the short amount of time that some of them were here with us on Mother Earth,” Eisan added.

She said the Remembrance Day ceremony was similar to the many she has attended back home, “but so much larger than I expected.”

“The ceremony was amazing, and very humbling,” Eisan said. “I just feel so honoured to have been a part of it.”

Marching among the massive procession of military, police and fires services through the town square and beneath Menin Gate – where the names of 54,896 British and Commonwealth soldiers, including 6,983 Canadians, are engraved on the walls – was a memorable way to cap off a week of events honouring highly decorated Indigenous Canadian soldiers Alex Decoteau and Sam Glode, who fought in the First World War, while also making stops at various war cemeteries to perform ceremonies at other Indigenous soldiers’ graves.

Eisan said it has been “a journey of a lifetime.”

“And to find myself in the middle of this, and to see how the government here treats our veterans and our fallen soldiers, has been amazing,” she said.

The Menin Gate was constructed at the entrance to the city after the war to honour the soldiers who liberated Belgium from the Germans.

The Last Post ceremony has been held every day at 8 p.m. since the memorial opened in 1928 – except between 1939 to 1945 when the city was taken over by the Nazis and the Belgian people moved it to London, England.

Hundreds of people gather nightly to watch the ceremony that begins with buglers playing the Last Post, followed by a moment of silence and wreath-laying, and ending with the sounding of the Reveille bugle call.

On Friday, the Canadian delegation was granted the honour of join the Last Post ceremony. More than 500 spectators gathered as Mi’kmaw singer Aaron Prosper performed ceremonial songs with his drum while Denise John and Jessie Benjamin astonished the crowd with their dancing.

The Remembrance Day ceremony on Monday – held just outside Menin Gate instead of beneath it because the memorial is undergoing a restoration until next summer – had an extra somber tone with mentions of the ongoing conflict in Europe and the Middle East, mounting concern of a third World War, and the threat of weapons of mass destruction being deployed.

And the “poppy drop,” which normally sees tens of thousands of paper poppy petals rain down inside Menin Gate during the ceremony, was done from the belfry in the town square because of the construction project.

But it was still a powerful way for the Canadian delegation to end a memorable week in Belgium, where Remembrance Day is a national holiday.

“This whole experience has been overwhelming,” Jeff Purdy, a councillor with Wasoqopa’q-Acadia First Nation and great-great-grandson of Indigenous First World War Sgt. Sam Glode, said afterward. “I’ve never seen such honour and respect, the remembering by the Belgium, for the fallen and for the veterans. I’m just feeling overwhelmed with emotions.”

Purdy said he has always attended Remembrance Day ceremonies back home in Nova Scotia, “but this was on a whole other level of remembrance.”

“It’s something that I’ll remember forever,” he added.

Rick Decoteau, of British Columbia, the great-nephew of Indigenous First World War soldier Alex Decoteau, said he now feels “more connected” to veterans, their families and those who have lost loved ones who served in the military.

“It’s just been a great coming here to Belgium and experiencing everything in a different manner,” he said.

Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Andrea Paul said she is “walking away” after her time in Flanders Fields “feeling empowered to do more” when she returns home to Nova Scotia.

“I take part in a lot of different ceremonies and being here has a totally different feel from we do them at home because the respect and the admiration and the support here for the veterans and their families has just been incredible,” she said.

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In Canada, while we never forget, we typically carry on with our lives after Remembrance Day until the next Nov. 11,” Paul said, explaining she feels “a bit guilty that I should be doing a lot more.”

“So, when I go back and I meet with the chiefs in my region and I meet with the regional chiefs and talk to them about the experiences I’ve had here, my hope is that I can bring a delegation of youth here so that they can also experience what I’ve experienced,” she said.

“It’s so important that we bring our youth here, so that they get to experience this,” Paul said, adding, “They’re the ones who are going to be continuing the legacy of honouring our veterans.”

– The Toronto Sun’s Chris Doucette, a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who served in the Royal Canadian Regiment, is in Belgium and will be visiting memorial sites and attending ceremonies leading up to Remembrance Day.

cdoucette@postmedia.com

@sundoucette