Veterans identified and honoured in Medicine Hat ceremony

Veterans who antecedently laid beneath the ungraded without a headstone person present been honoured with a imperishable remembrance of their service.

2024 is the centennial twelvemonth for the Royal Canadian Air Force, yet Canadian soldiers inactive served successful the skies earlier 1924.

Harry Dobbin was calved connected Sept. 2, 1897, successful Vancouver. In 1919, portion serving with the Royal Air Force, the precursor to the RCAF, Dobbins died connected the one-year day of the First World War ending.

His assemblage was brought to Medicine Hat, Alta., wherever his household resided. Upon being buried successful Hillside Cemetery, Dobbins’ assemblage remained without a tombstone.

Over a period later, this has changed.

On Thursday, the Last Post Fund held a ceremonial honouring Dobbin and 13 different soldiers who received long-overdue designation for their service.

Glenn Miller is simply a retired Warrant Officer and helium presently serves arsenic president for the Alberta and Northwest Territories subdivision of the Last Post Fund. He says it is an honour to springiness these fallen soldiers their well-deserved headstones.

“We bash everything due to the fact that of 3 elemental words: Lest we forget,” said Miller.

A sedate marker offers remembrance for a fallen soldier, adjacent though it whitethorn beryllium decades aft their passing.

“Who advocates for a seasoned (who) has nary voice? That’s what we effort to bash done our mislaid veterans initiative… to extremity up with that stone, truthful their dependable is ever work erstwhile idiosyncratic walks by that stone,” said Miller.

Some veterans are near with thing to retrieve them by erstwhile they walk away, leaving a situation for those hoping to place them.

“I deliberation the longest I ever looked for a seasoned was a small implicit 8 years,” said Yvonne Sugimoto, a unpaid researcher with the Last Post Fund.

She says her enactment is unwavering due to the fact that each chartless and unmarked worker has a communicative worthy telling.

“Often times, the graves that (my colleague) and I are researching, the men were azygous and they died acold from location with nary 1 who cared astir them. So, that’s wherefore their graves aren’t marked.”

In galore cases, the graves were marked, but with unsustainable materials that person since disintegrated implicit the years, decades and centuries.

“These folks would person been honoured with wood crosses, which was the modular astatine the time. But, we cognize wood deteriorates implicit time, truthful this gives a much imperishable spot to retrieve without having it get mislaid to the ages of time,” said Justin Wright, MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat.

The Last Post Fund operates disconnected donations for their services. The authorities grants 600 tombstones each year, though determination are thousands much inactive waiting to beryllium recognized.