Upwards of 150 people joined together at Town Hall last Monday to show their gratitude for the sacrifices of Canada’s brave men and women who have given so much for our freedom.
Alfred Stulberg, a veteran of the Second World War and longtime member of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he was touched by the amount of effort that went into the annual Royal Canadian Legion branch #51 and Davidson Inter-Church Association (DICA) Remembrance Day Service Nov. 11 at the Davidson Auditorium.
“Somebody went to an awful lot of work and it sure showed,” said Stulberg, who served with the Infantry Armoured Core Division from 1942 to 1945. During the war he spent one-and-a-half years overseas and seven-and-a-half months of this time as a prisoner of war. “The service seems to be getting better every year. People are more interested than what they were a few years ago.”
Gord McRae, president of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he was “surprised” by the large number of people both young and old who attended the commemoration. He said Rev. Diane Eurig did a great job emceeing the service that featured guest speaker Claude Weil delivering a stirring speech on why it is important to fight for one’s values.
“A lot of people were just ‘wow’ and really overcome by him,” said McRae, noting he has already started planning next year’s service. “It was very interesting for anybody that was there. A lot of people were amazed by his history, where he’d come from and what he did. Then they say ‘well we live in a great country. We think it’s tough, but compared to what he did (it’s not).'”
During his speech, Weil first spoke about his experiences serving as an Israeli combat soldier stationed in the Sinai Desert with a field tank company during a time of heavy tension between Israel and Egypt during the mid-1970s. He then moved on to his main topic of ‘what is the right fight’ where he described how we are all soldiers whether we are members of the military or not and for that reason we all must fight for what we believe in.
At the end of Weil’s speech he presented a definition of ‘what is the right fight’ when he said a fight is right if it is meant to directly protect the most vulnerable citizens of a country, province and community.
Weil said he chose the topic of ‘what is the right fight’ because it demonstrates how we all can fight the “little challenges” we encounter every day to make a difference. He said there are very few professional soldiers out there and they cannot solve all the world’s problems by themselves.
To read more please see the November 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.