Editor,
As we are all painfully aware the last two years have been a struggle to change and adapt to a different way of doing things. The Royal Canadian Legion has not been immune to this. This being said, we at the Legion have had to re-invent our traditional Remembrance Day service. So with consultation with our National Dominion Command of the Royal Canadian Legion, services throughout the country have been scaled back. Each Legion has had to adjust their individual programs to help in whatever way possible to keep ourselves and our citizens, who are involved or not, safe from this pandemic.
There has not been for the past two years any assembly with military, cadet corps, Legion marching contingent, or pipe bands or parades, or in-person individual wreath laying. The local Legion has struggled with this concept as we have been organizing and making sure that our veterans of all types have been shown the respect and honour that they so richly deserve for the past 80-plus years.
I believe that at this point, I need to set the record straight on a few points after some uninformed folks felt the need to take pen in hand and convey their disappointment with this year’s service.
Let’s be clear: the Municipality of Meaford and their staff, her worship the Mayor and also the sitting council are in no way responsible for the organizing and implementation of the Remembrance service. ALL aspects of the yearly event fall under the auspices of Branch 32 Meaford Legion as we are the keepers of Remembrance in this county.
The Municipality is used as a support mechanism. They have been ever so helpful and gracious for many years and we applaud them for that. Last year and this year the Legion did not request traffic control at the intersections as we have not had any gathering on the street directly adjacent to the cenotaph. Further, the reduced amount of comrades directly involved in the service were few, approximately eight in all, would not be in harm’s way. Also the service took no more than 10 to 15 minutes.
We at the the Legion are surprised and hurt that a VERY few folks would make such negatively viewed comments to the Municipality that had nothing to do with it. Please… I would urge anyone to check the facts before taking pen to paper.
In closing I would like to thank every one that attended the service and to hope that next year we could get back to a more traditional type of service for all veterans of our armed services both of today and yesterday.
LEST WE FORGET.
Steve Rice, President, Meaford Legion
