THUNDER BAY -- Gordon Adams said life as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot was at times glamourous, but at other times it could be frightening.
“Sometimes it was a little bit scary. You had to be careful what you were doing all the time,” said the 91-year-old retired flight lieutenant.
Adams was a pilot for the air force during the Second World War and was one of many Chartwell Select Thunder Bay residents in attendance at the retirement home’s Remembrance Day ceremony Friday.
He enlisted when he was 19 years old to continue the family tradition; his father and grandfather both served in the First World War.
For Adams, Remembrance Day makes him remember all the friends that are no longer here.
“That’s what I think of most on Remembrance Day,” he said.
Students from St. Margaret School’s Grade 5 class joined the Chartwell residents for the ceremony Friday morning and recited In Flanders Fields and sang a song.
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Grade 5 student Kaylyn Dawidenko said Remembrance Day is a day to remember all of the soldiers that died in wars fighting for our freedom.
“To me Remembrance Day means that I can take a moment of time to remember all those veterans and soldiers that died,” she said.
Royal Canadian Legion Port Arthur Branch 5 first vice-president Cory Pollock said children are special to Remembrance Day and it was nice to see the students participate in the ceremony.
Pollock said a gentleman from the U.S. has come up for the city’s Remembrance Day ceremonies for the past 30 years and last year he said something that struck Pollock as interesting.
“He says ‘You Canadians are more patriotic than Americans.’ That surprised me. He said, ‘You look out, you see young people. You don’t have that in the United States,’” said Pollock.
“Young people are very important to help remember and tell them what veterans have done,” he said.
There are three Remembrance Day ceremonies happening in the city Sunday.
Ceremonies will begin just after 10 a.m. in Waverly Park, the Fort William Gardens and on Mount McKay.
