Roy MacLaren knows the cost of serving one’s country and the price often paid for peace.
The former federal minister served as a peacekeeper in Hanoi, Vietnam, in the late 1950s, between the French withdrawal and the arrival of American forces.
He said Canadians served alongside Poles and Indians in a coalition trying to maintain peace.
“We didn’t succeed — we had a war,” he said.
MacLaren was one of many who attended Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Remembrance Day ceremony at the Queen Street cenotaph on Tuesday, in recognition of those who were on the frontlines of wars across the world, including the First and Second World Wars, in which 1.7 million Canadians fought.
Uniformed military personnel, politicians and residents gathered Tuesday to remember people like MacLaren — and the many who are no longer here.
NOTL held two ceremonies on a cold, windy day — one on Queen Street in Old Town and another at Queenston — both following a similar format. Each included two minutes of silence, a flag lowering, an address by a local official and a reading of “In Flanders Fields” by air cadet Avery Froese.
Froese, 17, said she had been accepted into police foundations programs at Niagara and Mohawk colleges. She admitted feeling nervous before reciting the famous John McCrae poem, but said the nerves faded once she began.
“There were lots of lessons on how to march, learning how important Remembrance Day is, especially for those that have fallen,” she said. “Even though we don’t know them, we know their stories and we want to carry that on.”
She was joined by fellow 17-year-old cadet Ethan Epp, who hopes to study engineering. He served in the honour guard formation at the cenotaph.
Both cadets have personal connections to the day’s meaning. Epp said his family came from the Netherlands, while Froese’s family fled Germany to avoid the Nazis.
Royal Canadian Legion president Al Howse, who organized the Queen Street ceremony, said he was pleased with how it went.
“We always make little mistakes that only we notice,” he said with a laugh. “But things are good.”
A military veteran and recipient of the Silver Jubilee Medal, Howse helped with several domestic operations, including the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1998 Ice Storm. He said he enjoys meeting others who have served.
“You always recognize each other’s groups,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t talk about the military at all. We just shake hands and say, ‘Welcome, glad to see you.’”
Remembrance Day honours all of Canada’s veterans, past and present — including MacLaren’s father, who served as an artilleryman in the First World War. He fought in the Battle of Passchendaele, where he was badly wounded and nearly joined the 16,000 Canadians killed there in Belgium.
That war claimed 66,000 Canadian lives in total. Another 42,000 died in the Second World War, 516 in Korea and 159 in Afghanistan.
MacLaren said he has learned that peace can come, but often at a heavy cost.
“I was very happy to see the eventual settlement in Vietnam,” he said. “But it took a long time and a lot of lives.”
