To borrow from John McCrae’s famous poem In Flanders Fields, they are the children of the dead, fallen Canadian soldiers.
Their fathers were killed in Afghanistan, in South Lebanon and in northern Alberta, in some of the astonishing variety of ways on offer in the military – in battle and plane crash, by accident and by mistake, by land mine, improvised explosive device and suicide bomber.
On a rain-swept Thursday, there were seven of the young people on the deck of the HMCS Fredericton, which was docked in Toronto on a bit of a tour; an eighth, Matthew Mellish, was absent, Sept. 3 being the fourth anniversary of his father’s death.
They were there to receive cheques from the Canada Company, a charitable, non-partisan organization which provides scholarships for four years at $4,000 a year and aims generally to build links between corporate Canada and troops. Canada Company’s current worthy push, led by its founder Blake Goldring, the chairman and CEO of AGF Management Limited, is to convince business and government to jointly protect the jobs of reservists who serve the country.
When Defence Minister Peter MacKay said that the young people’s “loved ones are here with you, all around you today,” it didn’t seem fanciful at all; the air was clearly filled with thoughts of absent fathers.
Sheralynn Kennedy was a month away from her 14th birthday when her stepfather, Master Corporal Tim Wilson of the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, died in a vehicle rollover in Kandahar on March 5, 2006.
Two years later, her mom, Daphne, was killed in a weirdly similar crash near their Manitoba home, and Sheralynn was suddenly an orphan.
She had, she said carefully, a difficult time, and understands how life can knock teens “completely out of balance.” Now just 18, she has rather a lot of unexpected life experience and is working towards a psychology doctorate at the University of Winnipeg.
She remembers her stepdad’s adventurous spirit and the times they’d spend together at the family cabin. “He taught me a lot,” she said. “Hunting. Not a lot of girls can skin a deer,” she said with a grin. “Mostly, I remember how fun he was.”
Natasha Roberge’s father, Warrant Officer Gaetan Roberge of the 2nd Battalion, The Irish Regiment of Canada, was killed in an IED blast on Dec. 27, 2008.
He was 45, Natasha was 17. “He was an average military man,” she said, “tough on the outside, soft on the inside.” An English and music student at Laurentian University, she misses most “the normal stuff,” the times they’d just be “vegging out in front of the TV.” Her dad had been to Bosnia, was often away training, and in her mind, Afghanistan was just a regular absence. His death was a terrible shock. The Canadian Forces was always, to her and to her father, “the peacekeeping army.”
Myriam Mercier, who is studying nursing in university, was teary as she accepted her cheque. “For me, it’s more than that,” she said. “I find it’s a way to just remember him, even if he is not here, all the support he gave to me before he left.”
Her dad, Master Warrant Officer Mario Mercier of the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, was killed on Aug. 22, 2007 in a land-mine blast.
Adam Naismith was just 12 when his father, Captain Kevin Naismith, was killed on May 26, 2003, when his CF-18 jet crashed during an exercise in northern Alberta. His son has always wanted to be a fighter pilot too, but has a backup plan in case he doesn’t make it through air crew selection – he’s in his third year of a bachelor of fine arts at the University of Saskatchewan.
This summer, he volunteered as a Big Brother, worked full-time in a lumberyard and was stage manager for a theatre production.
I missed talking to Kirsten Hess Von Kruedener, whose dad Major Paeta Hess Von Kruedener, died when on July 25, 2006, Israeli Defence Forces bombed the UN patrol base in Southern Lebanon where he was working as an unarmed military observer.
And then there were two of the three children of Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, the Regimental Sergeant Major of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment battle group. He was killed Nov. 27, 2006, by a suicide bomber.
Receiving scholarships were his son Robert, who will graduate next year from Laurentian’s law and justice program and begin his officer training. “He wasn’t a soldier at home,” he said of his dad. In fact, when he and his brother joined the Forces, “we had to learn the rank structure, even though we grew up in a military family.” Now nearly 27, Robert misses most his father’s steady guidance.
His sister, Jocelyn Ranger, is married to an infantryman now serving in Afghanistan, and pregnant with their second child, with a toddler of two at home. She’s also a full-time business student at Algonquin College, an education she couldn’t have got without Canada Company. Because their dad was older, they too were older, and didn’t qualify for other scholarships.
It was Joceyln who spoke for the recipients. She was graceful as she described her desire to give back and honour military families and their supporters.
When asked later what she missed about her dad, she said, “I miss the one person in my life who thought I couldn’t do wrong, who always trusted I would come around to the right decision.”
They weren’t the ones, in Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae’s poem, who were meant to catch the mythical torch and hold it high, but oh, how they have.
