Remembering the fallen
November 12, 2018
The clock strikes 11 p.m.
Four young adults, in their teens, step out of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 110. Their blue uniforms are pressed, perfectly. They walk towards an obelisk where four other youths are standing, motionless, with heads bowed. In the cold of the night, their breaths are visible. The four youth marching towards the obelisk stop at every corner, turning in unison. Each youth walks behind their respective pair, taking their place to do a shift on the cenotaph.
The new guard takes the place of the old and will stand there for 30 minutes, unflinching, their breaths the only movements in the subzero night air. The air cadets stand guard at the cenotaph every year on the night leading up to Remembrance day, heads down, not allowed to move, wielding a gun, all to commemorate soldiers who have died.
“At least it’s not raining,” said Sean Hamus, one of the soldiers from CFB Trenton.
The shorter 30-minute shifts are a change from the hour cadets in the past have had to do.
“We have a large group of kids,” said Hamus, explaining the change in rotation pace.
The cadets take shifts throughout the night. Some will get very little sleep that night.
The next morning, in a small sleepy town in Northern Durham, people were scheduled to gather at 9:45 a.m. around Port Perry High School, in Port Perry, Ont. As 9:30 a.m. rolled around, some people showed, but not the larger crowd that was anticipated. A quick jog to the back of the school, however, led to a crowd of some 150 people. Of those people, 68 were students and cubs from the Scugog region. The students were asked to carry a signed flag from the high school to the Town Hall.
The aptly named Silent March invited people to march in complete silence from the high school to the town hall. The symbolism behind the silence, as well as having 68 students carry a flag, is to commemorate the 68 soldiers from Scugog that did not come home from the Great War.
“That’s it, there’s no cheering?” yelled an onlooker.
Not a peep but the sound of feet stomping on the concrete.
The group made its way to the town hall where they were joined by a second march hosted by the Port Perry Legion.
The town square went from empty to filled with people within seconds. All you had to do was blink or look at their phone and you would have missed the crowd appearing from the ether.
In the chilly sunlit morning, the crowd commemorated the fallen soldiers and the armistice ending the war.
And on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the 2018th year, the bells quietly rang as a moment of silence was held to signify the end of the Great War, one hundred years prior.
