Yellowknife (Nov 10/06) - They meet once a week over free coffee at the Legion, and despite some of the horrors they've seen, they can still share a laugh together.

"Long back as far as I remember," Dusty Miller said, when asked how long the group of veterans has been meeting for tea and coffee. "It's sort of a tradition at the Legion. The people keep coming in, sort of like a family."

Miller has lived in Yellowknife for almost 50 years. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, repairing shot up planes as they returned to base in Great Britain.

"It was night fighters," Miller said of the group he was in during the war.

"Seldom seen and often heard," he quoted their motto.

"We were the first group to use radar." Miller said, noting that this gave Allied forces an advantage over their Axis enemies.

Bishop John Sperry has spent more than 30 years in the Northwest Territories doing missionary work in the High Arctic for the Anglican Church. Fresh out of college, the former British resident joined the Royal Navy to fight in the Second World War.

"I was on a destroyer, then on a minesweeper," he said. "I was conscripted, I had to go into something so I went into the navy, without knowing anything about it."

Sperry did admit that he was sick occasionally. "Being seasick isn't the worst part of the horrors of war at sea," he said.

Miller also enlisted as a collegian.

"Recruiters came up on graduation day, and we signed up. We used to say that it was before the ink was dry (on our diplomas)," Miller joked.

Rocky Parsons joined the Canadian army in 1944. He said that by the time he was finished training, the war was over.

"(I learned) how to fire a gun, hand-to-hand fighting," he recalled, adding that he took his discharge from military service once the fighting stopped.

Parsons is a pilot who has been living in the Territories for 38 years.

"I flew airplanes for 43 years. A lot of barrenlands transport flying. I was in and out of Iqaluit," he said.

Reverend Ron McLean joins the men for their tea and coffee, though he never fought in the war. But he can remember the times following the war.

"I remember back in the day how Germans were hated. Now a lot of Germans that fought in the war are our very dear friends," he said.

The veterans joke about why they get together every week.

"It's a pleasant surprise to realize we're still alive," Parsons said to his friends' laughter.