Not every hero, in my opinion, has to be larger than life, bravest of the brave and in possession of a marksman's sharp eye and a cool demeanor.
War is an abomination. It almost inevitably results from the greed of arms manufacturers and the power-hungry plans of addle-brained rulers who don't give a tinker's dam for the carnage and suffering their actions will bring down upon innocent people.
But you have to admire the men and women who put themselves in harm's way because they believe it is their sacred duty to fight "for king/queen and country."
When I served as Communications Assistant to the late Hon. Bennett Campbell, Minister of Veterans Affairs, back in the mid-1980s, I met more heroes than any one person could expect to encounter in a lifetime. Men and women from all walks of life and every part of Canada answered the call when madmen attempted to enslave mankind in either of the two world wars.
Many of those brave volunteers lie in unmarked graves while many others came home wounded in body or spirit and still others were gifted with the ability to pick up where they left off and not succumb to the siren call of alcohol or drugs to numb the horrible legacy of war.
I had a golden opportunity to chat with many of these veterans on Veterans Affairs pilgrimages to battle sites and monuments from Northern France's Vimy Ridge to the D-Day Beaches in Normandy to the all-but-forgotten killing fields of South Korea.
One characteristic of many of the men and women who told me their stories surprised me at the time - survival guilt.
On the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in World War One, my thoughts go back to one such survivor whom I came to admire greatly. A couple of days before he would lay a wreath in honour of his fellow combatants at the Newfoundland monument at Beaumont Hamel, he was part of a contingent that we took to the Vimy Ridge memorial near Arras in Northern France.
Abe Mullett had been with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and was still wracked with guilt that he had been in the infirmary with the ‘flu when his comrades went “over the top” on July 1, 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme. More than 80 per cent of their number was mowed down in that insane attack, yet Abe told me sadly at one point that he still felt he had “let the boys down.”
Before leaving on the pilgrimage, I’d received a request from CBC St. John’s asking if I could call them from Paris so that they could record an interview with Abe to be played on Remembrance Day. I made arrangements with Minister Campbell to use his room at the Grand Hotel to make the call.
At the appointed hour, I had Abe sitting on the bed beside me as I connected with the CBC staffer in St. John’s. But when Abe took the phone, he froze, looking at me with pleading, frightened eyes. I took the handset from him and arranged with the man at the other end of the line to call him back in 15 minutes.
“Abe,” I suggested, “would a little drink loosen you up a bit?" A big smile spread across his face and he replied: “Tammy, that’s a fine idea!” For reasons that will be obvious to Canadians of my generation, I don’t use the name Tommy Douglas, preferring to be called Tom. But the old codgers on our trip decided I was Tommy and in Abe’s Newfie twang this became Tammy.
Minister Campbell had a part-bottle of Canadian Club rye whiskey sitting on his bureau so I poured Abe a healthy tot – and one for me… just to keep him company of course. When he’d finished his drink, I asked Abe if he was ready to make the call. Another wicked grin crossed his face and he said as he held out his glass: “Tammy, you can’t fly on one wing!”
By the time the second jar had been consumed, Abe was loaded for bear. The CBC interview went off without a hitch and Abe even remembered to put in a good word for the minister and Veterans Affairs. What endeared him to me forever, though, was what he said to the man in St. John’s at the end of the interview: “Did I do alright? Okay, then would you do me a wee favour? Would you call the little woman and tell her I’m okay?”
Abe went back to his room to get a good sleep before our motorcoach trip to Vimy Ridge the next morning, the rest of the bottle of whiskey tucked under his arm. The next morning, I started to believe that I had killed him by giving him the rye to finish off! All the vets were on the bus in front of the hotel – except Abe. I told the minister I knew where his room was and would go to investigate, fearing the worst. As I got off the elevator on his floor, I spotted the old Newfie looking a tad unsteady as he made his way down the corridor.
“Abe, you didn’t drink all that booze this morning, did you?” I asked. To which he replied with a wink: “Well, I had one or two for the boys, but I’m okay, Tammy, I’m okay.”
When we got to the Vimy Memorial, a large crowd of onlookers as well as several military bands and various officials were milling about waiting for the ceremony to begin. I went for a stroll and was intrigued with various signs posted that indicated relics left over from that 1917 battle that put Canada on the map. One of them identified a rusty bale of metal as German barbed wire.
As I arrived back to where our vets were huddled, Abe walked over to me with an urgent look on his face and revealed that the whiskey he’d consumed was having the inevitable effect on his innards. “Tammy,” he whispered, “I have to take a pee!” That’s when inspiration struck. The signpost I’d just read was behind a large berm of grass-covered earth that had been thrown up by an exploding shell more than 65 years before. I led Abe over there out of sight of everyone else and asked if he’d like to do something for his old comrades.
“That’s GERMAN barbed wire you’re looking at, Abe,” I said. A delighted grin spread over his craggy features and with the words: “By Gad!” Abe unzipped his trousers and did one for the boys.
Diorama at Canadian War Museum (top of post) and Flanders Fields poppy tributes (Immiediately above) ~ Photos by Tom Douglas