Past and present: Canadian soldiers remember

“A lot of the Remembrance Days over our lifetime have been about our grandparents and World War Two. Now, it’s getting to be a little closer to home for a lot of people” said Sgt. Chuck O’Donnell, 31, referring to the Canadian soldiers that are in Afghanistan “It’s really touching home for a lot of people a lot more. It’s no longer just our grandparents. It’s a lot more realistic for us now.”

O’Donnell, a Beaconsfield native, has been a reservist with the Royal Canadian Hussars regiment on Cote des Neiges for 12 years. About a year and a half ago, he decided to sign up for the Afghanistan mission.

“It’s just something I wanted to do. It’s being a proud Canadian and wanting to give back,” O’Donnell said. He was sent to Kandahar this past July, where he works as a military escort and performs gate security, verifying all employees and vehicles that pass in and out of the base.

So far, the ride has not been an easy one: on Aug. 12, an armored vehicle carrying O’Donnell and four other soldiers drove over an improvised explosive device (IED). While the vehicle was severely damaged, the five sustained only minor injuries, with the most severe being a broken leg.

Following a three-week leave, O’Donnell left on Saturday to return to the National Support Element in Kandahar. He will spend about three more months in Afghanistan before returning to his Ile Perrot home and his wife and two children at the end of January or beginning of February 2008. While leaving his family is not easy, O’Donnell said he is looking forward to seeing his fellow soldiers again.

“It’s like a family away from home. I’ve told a lot of people I’m actually anxious to get back to see how the guys are doing. I’ve been living with them for four months, and I’ve been working with some of them for almost two years,” O’Donnell told The Chronicle last week. “Some of the friendships we make out there are friendships we’ll never forget. We’ve been through some pretty special things together.”

While there is more than 50 years between them, Marcel Otis, 84, had many of the same things to say about the camaraderie between fellow soldiers. The World War Two veteran, who is also the president of the patients committee at the Ste. Anne de Bellevue Veterans Hospital, said this time of year is both special and difficult.

“I do look forward to it. It’s a special, special week for me. It makes you cry sometimes,” Otis said. “For me, it’s not only one day; it’s all year long. In the army, you make close friends, so when your real friends are gone, it makes you think. Even the enemy. I’ve seen Germans lying on the ground, dying, and it still hurts. Even if they were the enemies.”

Otis, a Montreal native, joined the Fusiliers Mont Royal when he was 18 years old, and then was sent to fight in Germany and France as a 21-year-old private.

“I had no work and my parents weren’t too rich. So, I said to myself, I have to do my part like everybody else,” he said, adding that, because he was young, he needed his parents permission to join. “I got the permission from my father, but it was hard for my mother to sign.”

Over the past years, the Ste. Anne’s Hospital, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, has also been providing services to over 300 patients who took part in more recent Canadian missions like Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Rwanda. According to hospital communications director Maggie Michaudville, most of the services are psychological.

“They don’t like to talk too much about their wars,” Otis remarked. “Just like us.”

According to O’Donnell, Canadians should take the time – especially around Remembrance Day – to honour our past and present soldiers, no matter what their stance on Afghanistan, or any military mission, is.

“We’re not necessarily asking people to support the whole mission. We’re asking them to support the troops and support the people who are down there. We could be your neighbour, your cousin, your best friend, whoever,” he said. “And to veterans, God bless them for what they went through.”