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We’re back, COVID knocked us down, taught us a lot of lessons, but it did not destroy the will to help our Veterans, First Responders and their families who live with PTSD. The programs changes for a bit, but new ones grew out of the need for adaptation.

It is so good to see my friends again.

We returned to France & Belgium to remember WWI. Some sites we had seen, some were new. The group of riders was smaller, some people were still nervous about overseas travel and had decided to be cautious. The riders were made up of Veterans, Police and families. I still struggled with my anger with police services, but I had decided it was easier to ignore than try to understand.

This trip is about gratitude. Gratitude to those across the sea who tend the graves of our loved ones. They don’t forget. I wish we, in Canada, remembered with such care.

Hill 70 Memorial to Canadians. A new memorial that is danger of no receiving enough funding from Canada to maintain it. Yet this town donated the land to honour us.

This region is building a new canal. It is estimated that they will find 2000 soldiers who have been missing since WWI.

When body if found, there is small team of two trained investigators, who must get to the site within about 48 hrs. All work stops until they arrive. It is their job to determine if the remains are human, are they a WWI soldier and if so, begin the process of identifying them. Many soldiers have been found, and received a Military Funeral to lay forever with their fellow soldiers.

Vimy Ridge. This land was given to Canada by France. When you stand at Vimy you are in Canada.

But this year, more than Vimy or any other monument to our War Dead. Toronto Cemetery moved me. Seventy Canadian men lay resting at the end of a rut road, in the middle of a field of grain. Every year the farmer works his fields around this awkwardly place graveyard. There is no request to relocate them to a more convenient location. They fell here and here they rest.

“For you passed in the night, young fellow my lad, and you proved in the cruel test, of the screaming shells and the battle hell, that my boy was one of the best. ……. And you’ll never die, my wonderful boy, while life is noble and true; for all our beauty and hope and joy, we will owe to our lads like you” Robert Service