Going to my cabin on Bitobi Lake recently (Nov. 3), I was surprised to see a snapping turtle slowly, and I mean very slowly, making his/her way across the track road. I got a nice pic of it. I was thinking, “Gee, why isn’t this guy all curled up in a nice winter bed at this time of year?”
I’ve had WW I and WW II veterans in my thoughts and meditations a lot lately.
When we think about snapping turtles and their shells, the purpose and role of our military personnel come to mind for me. Like the shell protects the turtle, our military personnel are on alert 24/7 to stand in front of us as a mighty shield, dedicated to keep us out of harm’s way. Before pain can be inflicted upon us, the shield would need to be shattered. Something not easily done. Our military is the best of the best! Our veterans who experienced the horrors of combat in those dreadful world war years, are especially deserving of our praise and honour. Those of us who fail to recognize what our military did for Canada during WW I and WW II, are not what I would describe as an honourable citizen of this country, nor would I want such a person as a neighbour.
Over the course of my life, I’m 75 years young now and in the winter of my time, I have met many people who, in one way or another, had a life-altering effect on me, some good, some bad. Such is the case for all of us, I’m sure! WW I and WW II veterans sowed, through the interactions I had with them, the seeds of the human rights activism I have embraced and have been heavily involved since April 1988. When in the springtime of my life, I saw First World War veterans walking on the street. Some of them still impacted mentally with what doctors diagnosed as ‘shell shock’. I remember them as gentle old guys who didn’t have much to say. There was one WW I veteran who returned from frontline fighting in Europe mentally intact, but lived the rest of his life with a left arm rendered useless from a war wound. The old veteran went about his business whistling a merry tune. He had great respect for my parents and always made himself and his car available to drive my dad and mom to Aylmer for shopping or the running of other errands. I hold memories of him in high regard. I also recall standing on the sidewalk as a boy, watching the veterans of WW II march by on November 11th. How solemn their faces were, how proud their stride! I was so impressed with the accuracy they followed the marching commands of their sergeant. I must say that the sight of these old warriors conjured up images of frontline fighting in the mind of a 10 year old boy. The memories of those parades are still vivid in my mind today. I shall never forget them.
In the early summer of my life, I met a Second World War veteran who had been on the frontlines during the France and Germany campaigns. He had witnessed death in great numbers, those of the enemy and also those of his comrades. He showed me a dagger once, taken he said, from the lifeless body of a German officer. The veteran I speak about lived alone in a small shack, he was an alcoholic. Though the war had left him angry and bitter, he still chuckled when recalling ‘battlefield humour’. Other than that, he seldom laughed, his smiles were rare. The veteran loved the visits of young men. To sit with men in their teens or early 20’s in conversation, while drinking beer after beer, was delightful for him. My guess is that such times reminded him of the few happy memories he had of the war, taking a break from combat, getting drunk and singing songs from back home.
In the autumn of my life I met WW II navy veteran, Fred Berthelet. Fred served on auxiliary vessels, armed yachts and battleships from 1939 right up to the war’s end. Fred spent the last 6 months of the war in a hospital after his ship was torpedoed by an enemy sub. Fred always had a glint in his eye, the sharpness of his wit was beyond compare. He kept bushels of outlandish jokes on the ready that left me laughing out loud every time I saw him. Fred and his wife Thelma invited me to the Navy Officer’s Mess numerous times where we feasted on ‘fish & chips’. What an awesome couple they were!
I recall Fred telling me how it broke his heart knowing that navy warriors who died on the high seas did not have a marker, a cross, a visitor to a war cemetery can go and stand beside, to touch and reflect. Fred’s words brought out the poet in me and I wrote the poem ‘There is no Headstone or Cross for Him’. See it here:
There is no Headstone or Cross for Him
by Albert Dumont ©
That brave defender
Whose grave is the vast ocean water
There is no headstone or cross for him
But silent prayer and spoken words of remembrance
Still gather to fill the winds
And enter
Even to where his bones yet lay
While on high a bird soars
Singing a song of democracy
And cirrus clouds lift up
The pure heart of freedom
On this solemn autumn day
And we
Strong of will and noble vision
Stand proud at his graveside
For the ocean shore is long
And with united voice we vow
To guard ever vigilantly
Those passions he left behind
That brave defender
Whose grave is the vast ocean water
Though there is no headstone
Or cross for him
I also wrote the poem ‘Shimaganish’. It tells of a First Nations soldier who dies on the battlefields of Europe. Shimaganish had no rights in Canada. The ‘Indian Act’ of John A. Macdonald denied him even the very basic of human rights, yet there he was fighting and then dying for the freedom of others. Keep in mind, readers, that there were many First Nation communities where all able-bodied men living there ‘volunteered’ to serve during the Great War and the Second World War. See the poem ‘Shimaganish’ here:
SHIMAGANISH
(Defender)
Albert Dumont©
Dedicated to our brave Native soldiers who fell in the wars
1914-1918 and 1939-1945
Shimaganish
The vision conjured by authority
That his concerns were yours
Provoked in you a battle cry
To be heard only on foreign shores
But his enemy never broke your treaty
Nor did he crush your season’s lore
His enemy did not disease you
Nor your language, did he deplore
Shimaganish
Still, you marched into civilization’s madness
Only to be felled on a dreary dawn
And when your soul whispered, “You are dying”
Your heart overfilled with song
Then your thoughts travelled to the reservation
On the land where you were born
And you offered God a prayer of forgiveness
For all who showed you scorn
Shimaganish
A song awakened memories at the instant of your death
And the lullaby of Kòkomis
Brought you peaceful rest
Through wounded winds you flew
From the lifeless eyes of madness
To calm your mother’s aching heart, you knew
Would be filled with mournful sadness
Shimaganish
Your hair never aged to gray
And when your spirit watched
Your young heart buried, in a land far, far away
You heard God call upon your ancestors
To gather and to pray
So your heart might give its valour
To a relative born, on a future day
(Kòkomis is grandmother)
Keep the Circle Strong,
South Wind (Albert Dumont)
