You know you live in BC when.....

[canadianmak]

i attended Mark Isfeld for grades 9-12, it was Courtenay Jr (a middle school) before it became a highschool. No it doesnt have much school spirit, but rememberance days ceremonys were usually pretty good, being Mr. and Mrs. Isfeld always attended them, i believe they have both passed on as well now. Without them i wouldnt be supprised to hear the ceremony was mostly a slideshow that quit working halfway through, and some hippie from the leadership program trying to be melodramatic about something they dont care about, also if they still have the same principle that i had he is an idiot and good luck getting anywhere with him.

 

[Rifleman62]

VAC makes available A Guide to Commemorative Services and other resources here: http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=feature/vetweek

Print off a copy to make it easy for the school, advise the school of the web site, then go to the school next year again early Oct 2009. as a reminder. Your effort may be rewarded.

I do not know the numbers, but there is not that many Ordinary Members of the RCL, i.e. former members of the military.

Next time you are at the RCL for a ceremony, you might see a CD on the left breast, and lots of RCL medals on the right. This also applies to the head shed of the RCL and was one of the points of contention in the development of the New Veteran's Charter - who was speaking for who?

Just a comment on the RCL, not a shot.

 

[tango22a]

Comment noted and agreed with. Unfortunately if you try to work from the inside to change things you are either shouted down or just ignored. " WE like it just the way it is, stupid! Don't rock the boat, dummy!"

tango22a

 

[medicineman]

Sounds almost like the military some days... ;D.

MM

 

[Signalman150]

TCBF -- I understand your reaction to having to listen to John Lennon as part of a Remembrance Day Ceremony; I would feel much the same way. 

For the last several years I've gone down to the Legislature Grounds to watch the gunners do their salute.  The first couple of times I went, they held a short prayer service prior to the firing, but the last couple of years it's just been "Number One Gun..." and that's it.  So this year I went back to the Butterdome. The good news is--no John Lennon. In fact it was a ceremony much as I remember them from many years ago--complete with the odd gaffe by the parade commander.  The Lieutenant Governor and reps from parliament, the legislature, and the City of Edmonton gave short speeches. The prayer was a little odd; instead of the usual reading it was--as the padre described it--a "meditation", but still appropriate to the circumstances.  Maybe the Legion powers-that-be got the message, and maybe it's a sign of the times.

I have to admit, the comments about the Remembrance Day Services at Isfeld HS--and the title of this thread--remind me of the services held in my junior high and high school when I lived in Victoria BC. This was in the early '70s, and it was the fashion to have "anti-war" rallies rather than services of remembrance. This was all organized by the students with the blessings of the teaching staff. Everyone in BC in those days wanted to be just like the peaceniks south of the border, because they were...well, just... so "cool".

All of this made me extremely uncomfortable, (and unpopular since I was foolish enough to voice my discontent).  My father had been in the RCAF during WWII--and long after--and I was with the air cadets. But, the Left Wings and ***-****s had their way of course. I contented myself with parading with my cadet squadron on 11 Nov on the Legislature grounds.

Oh, and the way you feel about Imagine?  Thanks to those damn Remembrance Day travesties in high school, I have the same reaction to One Tin Soldier; the desire to heave the radio against a wall if someone is stupid enough to play it.

 

[Strike]

For the last several years I've gone down to the Legislature Grounds to watch the gunners do their salute.  The first couple of times I went, they held a short prayer service prior to the firing, but the last couple of years it's just been "Number One Gun..." and that's it.  So this year I went back to the Butterdome. The good news is--no John Lennon. In fact it was a ceremony much as I remember them from many years ago--complete with the odd gaffe by the parade commander.  The Lieutenant Governor and reps from parliament, the legislature, and the City of Edmonton gave short speeches. The prayer was a little odd; instead of the usual reading it was--as the padre described it--a "meditation", but still appropriate to the circumstances.  Maybe the Legion powers-that-be got the message, and maybe it's a sign of the times.

I was especially impressed with MP Laurie Hawn's recitation of a certain poem.  There were more than a few people around me who were nodding their heads in agreement.

 

[Greymatters]

I have to admit, the comments about the Remembrance Day Services at Isfeld HS--and the title of this thread--remind me of the services held in my junior high and high school when I lived in Victoria BC. This was in the early '70s, and it was the fashion to have "anti-war" rallies rather than services of remembrance. This was all organized by the students with the blessings of the teaching staff. Everyone in BC in those days wanted to be just like the peaceniks south of the border, because they were...well, just... so "cool".

Hmmm, I find that unusual, I went to school in the Victoria as well (grad 1982) and never saw a single anti-war rally at any service, and none of the schools I attended had any resident anti-war groups.

You must have been inner-city where all the radical wanna-be's were?

 

[KingKikapu]

You must have been inner-city where all the radical wanna-be's were?

I didn't even know Vic had an inner-city. 

While I didn't go to secondary school in Vic, I do remember the students against war group banning the CF from the career fair in the SUB at UVic.  I also remember them staging a little protest in front of the recruitment centre on remembrance day.  The usual stuff really.  I hear this year's hot topic is abortion.  Fun times.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Most kids do things by email/ texting these days (unlike anyone on this forum, eh?).

Why not fire the below link, to the Canadian War Museum site containing WW1 information, around to a few of them with a request to pass it around their friends? Couldn't hurt as I'm sure that, for most of them, John Lennon is about as distant as Vimy Ridge. Being Comox, there are probably a few kids from military families who might help spread the word.

Oh, and you should email the link to their (foolish, naive) teachers as well with a request to use some of the school kit materials available through the CWM at their service next year.... and try not to finish your note with 'You idiots!'.

http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/guerre/how-war-start-e.aspx

 

[Signalman150]

Hmmm, I find that unusual, I went to school in the Victoria as well (grad 1982) and never saw a single anti-war rally at any service, and none of the schools I attended had any resident anti-war groups.

You must have been inner-city where all the radical wanna-be's were?

Sorry Greymatters, but you're way off base and ten years too late.  Perhaps you didn't get what I was saying; this was in the days of the American "Hell-no-we-won't-go" mentality, and every Leftie on Canada's west coast was trying to emulate them. The time, my friend, was 1972, not '82. If you graduated in '82 you would have been about ten years old at the time and still far removed from junior high. I also recall a few adventures in the mid-seventies as a member of the C Scot R--a time when the Cdn army was doing primarily peacekeeping--of being called a "baby-killer" etc.  Gotta love them Lotus Land Lefties (Oh look; alliteration!).

And no, I was not from an inner-city school.  As a matter of fact the closest Victoria came to "inner-city" in those days was Victoria High School (and it still didn't qualify IMHO). No, I went to Cedar Hill Jr, and Mount Douglas High; hardly "inner-city" by anyone's standards.

So, now that I've (gently?) vented my spleen a'cha; PM me and let me know where you were in sunny Victoria.

 

[Old Sweat]

In the early seventies I was a captain and then a major staff officer in the military plans and operations organization in Canadian Forces Headquarters. Every six weeks or so a ministerial inquiry would hit our shop from school teachers on Vancouver Island who had written their NDP MP about the evil, war mongering, baby killing recruiters subverting the youth of Canada by visiting their high school. 

We used to get a good laugh out of the over the top phraseology and then somebody would haul out the form letter drafted to reply to these sorts of things and fire it up to the front office.

 

[daftandbarmy]

In the early seventies I was a captain and then a major staff officer in the military plans and operations organization in Canadian Forces Headquarters. Every six weeks or so a ministerial inquiry would hit our shop from school teachers on Vancouver Island who had written their NDP MP about the evil, war mongering, baby killing recruiters subverting the youth of Canada by visiting their high school. 

We used to get a good laugh out of the over the top phraseology and then somebody would haul out the form letter drafted to reply to these sorts of things and fire it up to the front office.

So that would be the same bunch of extreme left wingnuts who kept voting the BC NDP back into power, and who think this guy is a hero?

http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=41525

The Loonie Left Clark government even named the ferry from Quadra to Cortes Island after him. Appropriate for a draft dodger catchment area.

 

[RangerRay]

That's Fantasy Island for ya!  ;D

 

[Greymatters]

Although we are an "island in the Pacific Ocean", 'fantasy' is a bit of a stretch...