Remembrance Day resources

[Task]

I thought for those going to talk at schools or other functions for Remembrance Day we could pool some resources to help make the experience for the kids(in my case) that much more valuable.

I am attempting to link the past and the present.

For me, I am looking for specific/accurate Dieppe statistics that I heard many years ago (caveat, I do not know if this stat is true). It went along the lines as this...

From the time of the landing:
An Infantryman had 30 seconds before he was wounded or killed;
A crewman had 12 seconds;
and a Rad Op had 3 seconds.

I would like to include this in this years talk, but I do not want to be talking out of my butt. These are profound numbers best backed up with an actual reference.

A link to Korea:
Also, I read but do not recall where, a stat stating the RCHA fired as many rounds (specific tour) in support of a specific PPCLI Coy in Afghanistan as it did in Korea. Anyone else read that?

Lastly, pictures:
Does anyone have public domain pictures of children in Afghanistan playing. Kids here need to see similarities or difference compared to their world. If I show kids playing with the ONLY ball in town maybe they can see the difference. Or more commonly kids playing with kites.

If anyone did anything during their speech they found worked to capture their audience I would like to hear. I will be talking to K-6 this year.

 

[Old Sweat]

Could you be more specifc with the RCHA reference? The Canadian gunners fired roughly half a million rounds of 25-pdr in Korea. Perhaps some context or rephrasing would help in this instance at least.

 

[Task]

Agreed,


The article went something like this...(all numbers are made up)  1 RCHA in support of A coy 2 VP hit a milestone this week when it fired 1000 rounds while on tour Roto 3. The last time 1 RCHA fired that many rounds was also in support of 2 VP at the battle of Kapyong.

While the article was geared towards towards the brotherhood of the two units I want to make a correlation between the volume of fire then and now.

I believe I saw the article in the Maple leaf... I have been searching, though maybe the wrong keywords.

 

[Old Sweat]

1 RCHA did not take part in Kapyong. 2 RCHA with D, E and F Batteries was the first Canadian artillery regiment to serve in Korea and in May 1951 was still in a rear area drawing equipment and preparing to go into action.

 

[Task]

Found it, thank you Old Sweat.

Keywords and wrong Regiment were my problem. It was the E Bat and the RCR not VP.

Page 15 of:
http://www.theroyalcanadianregiment.ca/rcr_publications/propatria2007/Pro_Patria_2007.pdf

 

[dangerboy]

Found it, thank you Old Sweat.

Keywords and wrong Regiment were my problem. It was the E Bat and the RCR not VP.

Page 15 of:
http://www.theroyalcanadianregiment.ca/rcr_publications/propatria2007/Pro_Patria_2007.pdf

Of course A Coy, 2 PPCLI was attached to the 1 RCR BG so you got it partially right .

 

[Old Sweat]

Actually A Bty received the honour of bearing The RCR cypher on their guns for their support of 1 RCR in Korea, and the same honour was extended to E Bty for their support of 1 RCR in Afghanistan.

 

[exspy]

Old Sweat,

There are only two types of field batteries in the Canadian Artillery.  Those who have the honour of bearing The RCR cypher on their gun shields, and those who wish they could!  PRO PATRIA!

Cheers,
Dan.

 

[Michael OLeary]

And here's the memorial gun in Kingston and the plaques:

 

[Old Sweat]

I can verify as one who had served in A Bty circa 1967 that due care was taken of the plaques, one of which was mounted on each gun, and they were carefully shined and, in the field protected from the elements.

 

[Lex Parsimoniae]

The Directorate of External Relations and Public Relations in Ottawa maintains an intranet website that has a section titled "The Speaker's Corner".  This is an online resource for CF members and DND employees who are planning to speak about what they do.  It has various ready-made PowerPoint presentations and speaking notes available for download and use all year round.  The site also provides targeted products for special events such as Veteran's Week.  I spoke to a K-5 school last year using some of that material and it was well received.

 

[cphansen]

I thought for those going to talk at schools or other functions for Remembrance Day we could pool some resources to help make the experience for the kids(in my case) that much more valuable.

I am attempting to link the past and the present.

If I can make a suggestion, try sharing how the military has changed people and nations.
For example, I was born after WWII but I believe I would not be alive now if it hadn't been for the D-Day landings.

My family was living in Denmark during WWII and my father was an active member of the Queen's Brigade resistance movement. Unfortunately for him, a member of his cell decided to do a little adhoc sabotage on his own, was seen and shot by a German sentry. He was tracked down by the trail of blood he left and captured alive.
Of course this meant the cell, all, had to go into hiding. This took place in late 1944. So from late 1944 to VE day my father was hunted by the SD. They weren't looking for him to give him a pat on the back. But the Allies reached Denmark before the SD reached my father and I and my two brothers were eventually born.

We emigrated to Canada during the early 50's and established ourselves here and have been modestly successfull. My father was a machinest who worked his way from the shop floor to a vice presidency, along the way helping in the success of some Canadian companies and training many more young people how to be good machinests. He gave an opportunity to many people who wouldn't have had any chances at all. He certainly contributed to Canadian life and as for his sons. Two went into the Militia and served there. One bson became a teacher and internationally known in aquaculture, another worked in the oil patch and helped establish some very successful leasing companies. The third became one of the early programmers and helped give competative advantages to some  Canadian companies.
The point I would like to make is the D-Day landings affected my life and my family's life and you can find the same type of story in every single city in Canada

 

[Task]

Thank you Lex, I will certainly look into that.



SherH2A  That is an excellent idea. We all say we would be speaking German if it were not for those who fought, but showing an actual trail is something truly tangible.


SherH2A PM sent.

 

[Greymatters]

If anyone did anything during their speech they found worked to capture their audience I would like to hear. I will be talking to K-6 this year.

If youre talking to K-6 level, I think you should rethink a large portion of your presentation:

a) sounds like you will be using a lot of terms they wont undertand - infantryman? crewman? rad op? very few of them would know the difference, and any speech where you spend half your time explaing the terms you are using is a bad speech.

b) it also sounds like you are trying to make a convincing factual argument for delivery to adults rather than a personal and authentic delivery to children - consider the audience!

c) in general sounds like you are talking too tactical.  What is remembrance day?  What does it mean for you? What does it mean for our country? what does it mean for them?  what does it mean for the persons where we are working today?  These are opinions that will have a lot more impact than telling them about 30s lifespans.


Oh, and the reference to 'we'd all be speaking German today' is incorrect and actually offensive; there a lot of people out there still speaking German and it doesnt make them Nazis.  WW2 wasnt about what language we'd end up speaking it was about the extreme form of government and lack of human rights that was being imposed on a significant portion of the world...

 

[Task]

If youre talking to K-6 level, I think you should rethink a large portion of your presentation:

a) sounds like you will be using a lot of terms they wont undertand - infantryman? crewman? rad op? very few of them would know the difference, and any speech where you spend half your time explaing the terms you are using is a bad speech.

I agree, and will tailor it.

b) it also sounds like you are trying to make a convincing factual argument for delivery to adults rather than a personal and authentic delivery to children - consider the audience!

You might be right here as well. I personally am interested in UFI, and that is likely why I thought of  that material.

c) in general sounds like you are talking too tactical.  What is remembrance day?  What does it mean for you? What does it mean for our country? what does it mean for them?  what does it mean for the persons where we are working today?  These are opinions that will have a lot more impact than telling them about 30s lifespans.

I think those are great summation questions for them. At this point I am not sure if I would answer them or not.

Oh, and the reference to 'we'd all be speaking German today' is incorrect and actually offensive; there a lot of people out there still speaking German and it doesnt make them Nazis.  WW2 wasnt about what language we'd end up speaking it was about the extreme form of government and lack of human rights that was being imposed on a significant portion of the world...

I apologize if I offended you. In hindsight it was crass. The intent of the expression is to convey governance other than our own not that we would realistically all be speaking German.

 

[Greymatters]

I wish you luck with it - talking to kids is a pretty high level challenge, and it tends to challenge even the best presenters.  Kids dont care if you are an expert in your field, or are an expert on history, or are a veteran.  They just want you to be entertaining or at least interesting, or they in turn will lose interest pretty fast.  If you've got some experience teaching or coaching kids in sports its a big help.

 

[desert_rat]

this site may provide some food for thought...

http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/main.html

 

[pbi]

I've spoken to various levels, from elementary school to high school to university. I found it universally rewarding, but I do agree that you absolutely have to consider the audience. My "SOP" talk (tailored as required to each audience) focused on what Remembrance Day meant to me as a serving soldier. I addressed three main ideas: past, present, and future. To deal with the past, I referred to our debt to soldiers who have gone before us (and the big shoes they left us to fill as we serve today...);the present I covered by reminding the audience of the need to remember that Canadians are serving in dangerous places right now at this very minute: veterans are created every day in our service; and finally I looked out to the future and stressed that as serving soldiers we know that  more sacrifice might be asked of us, and that some of us might die. Accordingly, if we expect to be remembered, the very least those of us in uniform today can do is to honour the memories of those who have gone before (thus bringing it back around full circle to the beginning).

It took only a few minutes, and I found that it was well received regardless of the audience. You can add historical facts depending on the ability of your audience to relate to them. Two that I was very fond of (because most Canadians are so utterly unaware of the magnitude of our past sacrifices) were:

-in WWI, out of a population of about 8 million, we put over 600,000 in uniform, of whom 60,000 died. That is about 15,000 dead for each year of the war; and

-in WWII, from a population that had grown to around 12 million, nearly one million Canadians served, of whom 45,000 died, or about 7500 per year.

Canadians rightly mourn our losses in Afgh, but most don't realize that at times in our past, the deaths we have suffered in nine years in Afgh were sometimes lost in a few minutes.

I strongly encourage everybody to get out and speak: I always found a real desire amongst most Canadians, of all ages and backgrounds, to honour Remembrance Day.

Cheers

 

[mariomike]

-in WWI, out of a population of about 8 million, we put over 600,000 in uniform, of whom 60,000 died. That is about 15,000 dead for each year of the war; and

I have read that there were 3,598 dead out of 10,602 Canadian casualties at Vimy Ridge April 9-12, 1917.

 

[pbi]

I have read that there were 3,598 dead out of 10,602 Canadian casualties at Vimy Ridge April 9-12, 1917.

That would be nearly 1,000 KIA per day. Staggering. It's quite something to think about what 60,000 deaths must have done to a country that only had 8 million people in it. Roughly speaking, today we would have to suffer about 240,000 dead to achieve the same ratio of KIA to population.

If you look around Canadian cities, towns and even very small villages, you will almost always see WWI memorials. These are sometimes in town parks, sometimes in churches and cemeteries, and sometimes in the form of buildings or street names like "Vimy Memorial Arena" or "Flanders Avenue". It seems to me that every community suffered some losses: the effect must have been huge. Not to mention the tens of thousands who came home badly injured or seriously ill, or with psychological problems that were not well understood at the time, and were demobilized out onto the street.  No wonder there was a desire to stay out of foreign wars and involvements in the 20's and 30's.

Cheers