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CF Nijmegen contigent visits Vimy Ridge
By Captain V.G. Winter, CEFCOM Public Affairs
Master Bombardier Jeremy Blackburn of Land Force Atlantic Area Headquarters (left front) leads the 2008 CF Nijmegen contingent marches to the Vimy Memorial for the commemorative parade conducted annually on the way to the Nijmegen Marches.
The 2008 CF Nijmegen contingent poses on the steps of the Vimy Memorial after the annual commemorative parade.
LCdr André Boisjoli points out the name of his great-grandfather, Pte William Provost of the 22nd Battalion, CEF, on the Vimy Memorial.
Vimy, France; 13 July 2008 — On a cloudy day in Vimy, the soldiers of today pay their respects to the soldiers of long ago. More than 200 members of the Canadian Forces Nijmegen contingent visited the Canadian National Vimy Memorial and toured the First World War trenches and tunnels before conducting a moving parade in front of the monument.
As La Marseillaise played, the cloud cover broke and the sun shone on the white limestone of the memorial, giving it an intense glow that stung the eyes.
“My main reason for coming was to see his name,” said Lieutenant-Commander André Boisjoli of the Maritime Staff in Ottawa, whose great-grandfather, Private William Provost of the 22nd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, died on 16 April 1916 at the age of 36. Pte Provost’s body was never found, and now he is one of the 11,285 soldiers with no known grave whose names are carved into the monument. “I came in 2005 but the monument was under renovation and his name was covered up. It is very important to me and my family that his name is commemorated here.”
“Coming to this place is a pilgrimage for people who have family who died here,” said 20-year-old tour guide Elizabeth Kantor. She has been here only since April, but she already understands the essence of collective remembrance. People come to pay their respects and see where men lived and died in the trenches of the Great War.
Corporal Joe Kiefer and Corporal Brett Lovelace, veterans of the current Canadian conflict in Afghanistan, can’t help but compare their experience with the trenches of the First World War. “Some of the conditions are similar to those of the strong points in Afghanistan,” explained Cpl Kiefer. “A chief difference,” said Cpl Lovelace, “is that soldiers then had the benefit of knowing their enemy.” Commenting on the chivalry that was sometimes displayed during the First World War, when soldiers of both sides would stop fighting for Christmas, Cpl Lovelace emphasized,“In our current conflict, we are the only ones with honour.”
In a fitting and tragic reminder of the effects of war, while leaving Vimy the contingent heard the bleating of the sheep that graze around the monument, keeping down the grass in areas where a lawnmower might set off generations-old unexploded ordnance. The fields of France are thought to contain more than 300,000 unexploded shells and mines. Each year, they kill dozens of people.
