#dailycolonist1914 - This is too good not to give its own post. In the summary of the fighting in Galicia (a province of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire) the paper makes an aside to characterize the Galician people, saying that anyone who has...
News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:
Fighting in nearby Waterloo forces Belgian government to abandon Brussels and move to Antwerp [where my maternal grandparents are living at the time, children of 10 and 14].
It's Remembrance Day again. In some past years I've made posts about my father's service during WWII (2001, 2003 repost, 2005 repost, 2008) and at other times I've written about some of the horrors my mother and father survived during WWII. And one year I had a few things to say about why it's important to remember war. Let me reiterate and expand on those thoughts:
It's Remembrance Day again. In some past years I've made posts about my father's service during WWII (2001, 2003 repost, 2005 repost, 2008) and at other times I've written about some of the horrors my mother and father survived during WWII.
For most people I know my age and younger it is their grandparents or even great-grandparents that were involved in WWII. Unlike today it was very unusual around the time of my birth for people in their late 30's or early 40's to be having children but that's precisely what my parents did. For that reason I'm only one generation removed from what is still referred to at "the war." It's not the distant past for me. It's my parents. My father fought in North Africa in Italy. My mother lived in Belgium during the German occupation.
I just came across this image of my father's regiment (14th Canadian Army Tank Regiment) at Dieppe. My father was in a tank just like these, possibly even one of these ones shown, and would have certainly known some of the dead men depicted in the picture.
For most people I know my age and younger it is their grandparents or even great-grandparents that were involved in WWII. Unlike today it was very unusual around the time of my birth for people in their late 30's or early 40's to be having children but that's precisely what my parents did. For that reason I'm only one generation removed from what is still referred to at "the war." It's not the distant past for me. It's my parents. My father fought in North Africa in Italy. My mother lived in Belgium during the German occupation.
I just came across this image of my father's regiment (14th Canadian Army Tank Regiment) at Dieppe. My father was in a tank just like these, possibly even one of these ones shown, and would have certainly known some of the dead men depicted in the picture.