Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 09/01) - Dusty Miller spent the war years fixing Spitfires in the airfields of England.

The 81-year-old war veteran worked five years with the Royal Canadian Airforce keeping fighter jets in top form 24 hours a day.

Dusty Miller, Yellowknife's 81-year-old war vet, will be taking part in the Remembrance Day ceremony on November 11. - Jorge Barrera/NNSL photo

He was only 19 when he boarded a freighter, packed with soldiers across the dark November seas in 1939. He said it stormed the whole trip.

"Almost everyone got sick on the boat," said Miller.

"It was certainly scary, particularly for the boys from the Prairies. They'd never seen this much water and were now involved with water waves coming up over in white curls for hours and hours, water and water, black and scary."

They landed on some unknown British port during a blackout only to be whisked away on a train that chugged through the countryside towards the war.

And 16 years later the 35-year-old from Blenhem, Ont., now a seasoned war vet, stood on parade in -40 temperatures, in Aklavik Nov 11; his first Northern Remembrance Day.

Now much later, with the parades getting smaller each passing year, Miller still struggles to keep the water behind his eyes, thinking about the men who gave the world a second chance.

"Remembrance Day is not for people like me, our scars are healed. It's for the others, whose scars never had a chance to heal. They never had the chance," said Miller.

Miller will be there standing on parade in the streets of Yellowknife on Nov 11.

Starting at 9:55 a.m. there will be the traditional parade up Franklin Avenue from the Legion to 53rd Street, turning right to 49th Avenue, to 51st Avenue and St. Patrick's high school, for a two-minute moment of silence starting at 11 p.m.