Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Nov 11/02) - Marje Lalonde was 17 when she lied about her age to enlist in the Canadian Women's Army Corps.

She turns 79 next month but this veteran of the Second World War recalls how the threat of Nazi Germany drew the country together.

Yellowknife's Dusty Miller was an airplane mechanic during the Second World War. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

"Life was very different then," she said. "There was a lot of propaganda and everyone was fired up to get in the army and do their bit. All of my school chums were into doing something in the war."

Lalonde worked in the Signal Corps and remembers the overwhelming support for the war effort.

"We were also fervent in our beliefs that we were saving Canada and the world. Everyone thought we were saving the world."

The world they saved, is a far different place in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Today, I think the world is one hell of a sad mess. I wonder why we had to go through World War One, World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. Why did we have those wars and still be in this mess?"

Edmonton

Remembrance Day has always been special for Tom Harvey, but today it's even more important.

He was born in Hay River and grew up in Kugluktuk. Now a corporal in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, he's a veteran of six months in Afghanistan fighting the war on terrorism.

Four of his comrades were killed during his tour of duty.

"It's probably going to have a bigger impact on me this Remembrance Day than any other," he says.

Harvey knew all the Canadian soldiers killed by an American bomb dropped on a training exercise in Afghanistan. He went through infantry school with two of those killed -- Nathan Smith and Richard Green.

"I feel personally that I achieved what I set out to do," he says. "I feel I did something good over there."

Yellowknife

Remembrance Day holds a lot of meaning for 83-year-old Dusty Miller. The Yellowknife resident enlisted in 1940, right after graduating from college.

"The recruiters came and were at the door of the college when we had the graduation. So they were waiting for us to come out, and we were waiting for somewhere to go."

An airplane mechanic with the Royal Canadian Air Force, Miller trained for six months before being sent overseas.

He knows what it was like to lose a buddy.

"It's hard to describe. It's a terrible feeling when the crew is missing from the bunkhouse or from the operation. It's just a blank spot."

Miller sees little difference in his war and what's happening today.

"It's a problem now as it was then. We have to accept what's happening as something that has to be. It's a situation, and situations don't go away by themselves."

Esquimalt, B.C.

Last Remembrance Day, Cmdr. Jim Heath and the crew of HMCS Vancouver reflected on wars past as they prepared for "missions unknown."

The Vancouver was one of Canada's first contributions to the war on terrorism. The ship and its Inuvik-raised commander joined a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group for missions around the Arabian Sea.

"You always wondered, 'Is that guy going past in a fishing board ... a boat full of explosives,'" said Heath, now base administration officer at CFB Esquimalt, near Victoria, B.C.

He felt the pain of informing his crew about the deaths of four Canadian soldiers.

"I was a classmate of Lt. Col. Pat Stogran (who commanded the soldiers killed)," said Heath. "It was very difficult for me to pass the painful news to my crew."

He's proud of his service in Afghanistan and speaks highly of the men and women on board Vancouver.

"We have a moral obligation to participate," said Heath. "What happened was wrong."

Inuvik

There's nothing romantic about the Korean War as Marcel Lacerte remembers.

On the ground, it wasn't about fighting for freedom, democracy or some other abstract ideal. Lacerte remembers simply the fighting.

"I was there to fight with somebody," Lacerte says. "I really didn't know what I was fighting for. I was there to fight an enemy. I didn't even know why I was his enemy."

Lacerte is now 70 and for the last 30 years has worked as a taxi driver in Inuvik. He's a father to grown children now, and a grandfather too. But 51 years ago, he was 19, just old enough to join the army. Friends from his hometown of Assiniboia, Sask., were joining and it seemed like the thing to do.

In September 1951, Lacerte left by train for Seattle, where the boats were leaving for Korea. His parents didn't say much when they left him at the train station, but Lacerte later learned how much his leaving affected them.

"We're Metis people and you did not show affection," Lacerte says. "Mom and Dad came with me to the train station and Dad said, 'I got to go. I got things to do. Good luck.' My mom, she stayed until I left. After I came back, my mom told me Dad didn't want to see me go. She said he went in the truck and he took off and he cried."

As a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Lacerte and his fellow soldiers enjoyed a good reputation at home and abroad.

"We were very proud to be Canadians. The Canadian soldiers don't run -- we'd stand and fight until the last bullet, the last man. That's the way we were trained."

-- with files from Kerry McCluskey, Paul Bickford, Mike W. Bryant, Terry Kruger and Lynn Lau Northern News Services