Here is the current schedule for Remembrance Day activities.

Morning Vigil – Old Town Cenotaph

Supervising Officer / Wreath Laying – Capt Lemoine

Reading of “In Flanders Fields”

Vigil Shifts

1015 – 1045:
1045 – 1130:

Afternoon Schedule – Queenston Cenotaph

Supervising Officer / Wreath Laying – Lt Nicolescu

Reading of “In Flanders Fields”

Vigil Shift

1245 – 1330:

Cadets should be dropped off (at the Old Courthouse parking lot for Old Town and at the RiverBrink Art Museum parking lot for Queenston) 30 minutes before their shift. They can be picked up at the end of the respective service.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

J Lemoine
Captain
Commanding Officer
809 Newark RCACS
Immortal!

It is a tradition in Niagara-on-the-Lake, that 809 Cadets stand vigil at the Old Town cenotaph on Remembrance Day from the early morning hours to the end of the 1100 service. In the afternoon, we also participate in the 1300 service at the Queenston cenotaph. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench in the entire process and we have been unable to participate since Remembrance Day 2019. This year, we’re slowly but surely resuming our role.

Normally, we do an overnight sleepover event at the Royal Canadian Legion the night before and begin standing vigil in half hour shifts from 6am to the end of the first service. We then go to back to the Legion for lunch, travel by bus to the Queenston service and then return to the Legion for parent/guardian pickup. Restrictions on overnight activities and mixed gatherings require us to modify the program this year, so here’s what we’re going to do:

At a minimum, cadets will stand vigil at the Old Town and Queenston cenotaphs during the services themselves and will read “In Flanders Fields” at each service. We already have enough cadet volunteers to fill this role. We’ll work backwards from the 1100 service and begin our half-hour shifts as early as we can depending on how many cadets can get rides to and from the Old Town cenotaph.

Dress for Remembrance Day will be 1A/C1A.

Please email 809air@cadets.gc.ca with your availability for Remembrance Day activities as soon as possible so that we can begin building the schedule.

For those cadets participating, the following letter has been made available to explain to your teachers why you’ll be absent from school while participating.

Remembrance Day Excuse Letter 2021

Cadets who are unable to attend have blanket permission to wear their C1A uniform to school to represent the squadron.

J Lemoine
Captain
Commanding Officer
809 Newark RCACS
Immortal!

Remembrance Day 2020 may not look like previous years but the reading of names, the wearing of poppies, the minute of silence, the playing of the Last Post, all give meaning and expression to the gratitude and regret for lives lived and lost in the service of Canada. #CanadaRemembers #LestWeForget

A message from our Commander:

“I am incredibly proud of the small, yet meaningful gestures and actions cadets and JCRs take to show their respect for veterans and their sacrifices. You are clearly demonstrating that the next generation of Canadian leaders will not forget those who gave their lives to defend the values that define Canada.”

Commodore Kurtz, Commander CJCR

Tomorrow, the Royal Canadian Legion begins its annual Poppy Campaign. Under normal circumstances, our staff and cadets would be participating in the campaign, giving due consideration to what it means, and taking the opportunity to learn from our veterans about their experiences in times of conflict. Many of these opportunities aren’t going to be available this year due to the constraints of COVID-19 preparedness, but it is still our responsibility to take the time to think of what it all means.

Tales of war will fill our consciousness over the next few weeks, not because we give these things any kind of reverence or glory themselves, but because of the people who were and are willing to give everything for their loved ones, their communities, and their country. The Poppy and Remembrance are not about war, though war figures into the stories. They are about ensuring that the memory of war remains strong enough that we know it for the horror that it is. They are about holding everlasting respect for those who are willing to step up and do what their country calls them to do, without knowing the sacrifices that might have to be made for it. They are about knowing those sacrifices as our own, remembering the losses as our own losses, and feeling the pain that our veterans live with each day as our own pain.

Remembrance is about more than the consideration of the memories and sacrifices of others. It is about ensuring that these are always a part of who we are. It is about making them immortal.

From tomorrow until Remembrance Day on 11 November, the Poppy is to be worn on cadet and CAF uniforms, and I encourage everyone to consider its deeper significance while they wear it.

I’ll leave you with the Royal Canadian Air Force’s video production of HCol Loreena McKennitt‘s “Breaking of the Sword” to set the tone for the next weeks.

Be safe. Stay healthy. Remember.

J Lemoine
Captain
Commanding Officer
809 Newark RCACS
Immortal!