It takes both young and old to remember on Nov. 11.
As guns rang out behind the legislature at Queen’s Park in Toronto, young soldiers and veterans of the 7th Toronto Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, stood in a sombre perimeter around a collection of antique artillery and vehicles as the city remembered those who have served in Canada’s Armed Forces.
Pte. Erica Kawasaki, a second-year biology major at Toronto Metropolitan University, said she was there to “not let my fellow soldiers down.”
Pte. Adrian Simpson said he felt it important to remember that “people sacrificed their lives.”
Mike Sutton, a former artilleryman, thought it was important to remind the city of the military’s importance to Canadian life.
“What better way to get people interested,” the veteran said. “People just don’t realize how important a military is for our country.”
That importance goes beyond fighting wars. It includes being ready to respond to emergencies of all kinds, said Sutton, as he showed off an Oshawa-built 44 Quad truck and 25-pounder artillery piece used to produce the thunderous percussion of the Remembrance Day ceremony.
Canada lost 61,000 soldiers during the First World War, more than 45,000 during the Second World War, and more than 500 during the Korean War. s
Between 1956 and 1967, 32 soldiers were killed in peacekeeping operations in the Suez Canal. Between 2001 and 2014, 158 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.
