Local politicians share memories of why Remembrance Day is important

Remembrance Day hits close to home for Keith Hobbs, who grew up listening to the wartime stories of his mother and father.
Hobbs’s mother was an intelligence agent for the famed British spy outfit MI5 during the Second World War, while his father was a soldier injured in the fighting.

Neither parent escaped the war unscathed, Hobbs told a small gathering of seniors on Thursday, at an early Remembrance Day ceremony held at McKellar Place on the city’s south side.

His mother was on the team trying to decipher Hitler’s infamous Enigma code, but when they finally cracked it, they couldn’t say a word, for fear of tipping the Nazi dictator off. Instead the Allies wanted to use the information to take the Third Reich, and were willing to sacrifice their own to make it happen.

“They knew Hitler was going to bomb Coventry and they couldn’t do anything about it,” Hobbs said. “Those are the kinds of wounds and hurt people carry all their lives because of war.”

His father’s wounds were more physical in nature.

Bombarded with shrapnel, Hobbs said his father used to tell his children surgeons had to remove his eye from their sockets to remove the shards of metal embedded there. Throughout the remainder of his life he suffered from the attack, but rarely let anyone know.

“He was just one of the lucky ones,” Hobbs said. He didn’t complain a lot.”

But it’s because of people like his parents, and the thousands upon thousands of soldiers who served, were injured, or paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country, that it’s important to remember, the mayor said.

“We can’t forget the people who are still serving in conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. “Those are the kinds of sacrifices that are made daily in war efforts and conflicts like the Korean War and Afghanistan.”

For Rafferty, the NDP MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, it’s the tale of his grandfathers that makes Remembrance Day so special.

Both served in the First World War, though both followed entirely different paths to get there, he said.

His mother’s father joined the army as a private, and left as a field-decorated colonel.

“He became a colonel because at various times he was the only one left standing,” Rafferty said.

His father’s father, on the other hand, was a minister, who refused to take up arms, but wound up overseas volunteering on the front as a stretcher bearer, carrying the dead and wounded out of harm’s way.

“They were two very different men who took different paths,” Rafferty said. “But the one thing they had in common was they believed in freedom, they believed in Canada.”

He pointed out 118,000 Canadians have died at war since Confederation.

“That’s a lot of lives lost and a lot of families grieving.”

MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan), said the fact so many Canadians volunteered to fight for what’s right says a lot about the nation and its people.

When you stop and think about it, he said, the disproportionate number of Canadians who served underlines and underscores that nature of the country, pointing to the thousands of people who walked in droves to recruiting offices throughout the land to serve their country.

“It’s easy to forget that it was a volunteer effort,” he said. “Thunder Bay has a tremendous reputation at a community that turns out to volunteer, and that lows through our veterans and the legion. We have much to be proud of,” Mauro said.

Remembrance Day ceremonies will be held on Friday morning at Waverly Park, Fort William Gardens and Mount McKay.