{"id":191740,"date":"2023-11-03T09:50:03","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T13:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=191740"},"modified":"2023-11-06T11:01:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T16:01:23","slug":"royal-canadian-legion-member-wants-to-bring-veteran-grave-marking-project-to-the-national-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/royal-canadian-legion-member-wants-to-bring-veteran-grave-marking-project-to-the-national-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Canadian Legion member wants to bring veteran grave marking project to national level"},"content":{"rendered":"

A member of the Royal Canadian Legion in Philipsburg Branch #82 has been working on a veteran grave marker project with the goal of expanding it nationwide by next year, hopefully in time for next year's Remembrance Day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Arnold Raymond has been a volunteer with the Royal Canadian Legion in Philipsburg, Quebec Branch #82 since 2013. Shortly after becoming a member, he discovered that his grandfather served in the Canadian Armed Forces in the First World War. After visiting his gravesite, he decided to create a marker that would clearly identify his grandfather as a veteran.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CIDI sat down with Raymond and Edith Dandenault, a project volunteer, to discuss the veteran grave marker project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was only eight years ago that I learned about this [his grandfather's service] and it\u2019s not right. I think I should have known about that before, and there are a lot of people in my case as well in this country that don\u2019t know. I think the markers should be in the cemetery identifying these people. Whenever anyone goes to a cemetery to visit their loved ones, they\u2019ll see there\u2019s a veteran, there\u2019s a veteran,\u201d said Raymond. \u201cWe have over 1300 cemeteries in Quebec alone that have veterans in it that aren\u2019t identified and I think that\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collaborating with a group of volunteers that hopped on board with his initiative, 220 graves have been marked in Canada since 2018. Now Raymond is looking to bring the project to the next level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we want to do is get the names and addresses of all of the legions across Canada, and by next Remembrance Day send them all a marker, along with a little pamphlet saying \u2018offer these to your community, your loved ones, your veterans, your veteran\u2019s families.\u2019 If they want one, they can buy one through that legion and we will ship it to that legion, and they can pick it up at that legion. All of the districts in Canada, we should be able to cover them all. I want this to be a national thing,\u201d he highlighted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Continuing to highlight his cause, Raymond explained that veterans that serve in the Canadian Armed Forces and die overseas are \u201call identified with the Common Wealth Grave Commission, but there\u2019s nothing in this country and that\u2019s my goal is to get them all identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe children today, they don\u2019t know what went on. They\u2019re not aware of who served. It\u2019s to make them aware and to educate them more on the service that our people did and serving our country to give us what we have today. All of the peace and freedom that we have today, we owe them a lot, we owe them an awful lot. We don\u2019t know them, but we certainly owe them,\u201d he emphasized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal programs across the country are trying to get kids to start thinking about the First World War, the Second World War, what it meant, and even the wars since then. (\u2026) I thought Arnold was right,\u201d added volunteer Edith Dandenault. \u201cEven for me, even if I don\u2019t have a military family, for me to walk into a cemetery anywhere and to see a recognizable marker, something that would say 'this person\u2019s gravestone you are looking at served this country,' (\u2026) I thought that was something that would touch me. But it\u2019s also in line with programming going on in schools. I\u2019m a teacher, so I thought that was a good tie in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Describing the grave marker in more detail, Arnold Raymond said that he originally made them out of plastic, but decided to stick with a \u201cstainless steel leaf with a decal that is UV protected, with a steel shaft, and I knotted a Canadian Flag on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The marker also includes a symbol hand-drawn by Raymond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was using the poppy in the beginning, but I was told that I needed permission from different identities, all the way up through to the Dominion of Command, to use the poppy on this. (\u2026) So I sat down with a paper and a pencil and I drew this. It shows a soldier holding his weapon, head down, a banner across the bottom that says \u2018veteran\u2019 in both languages, and \u2018je me souviens\u2019 and \u2018lest we forget\u2019 on top. It is coloured black and yellow and red for the leaf,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the timeline for the veteran grave marker project, Raymond said that his goal is to have the sample markers in the hands of all Royal Canadian Legion branches in Canada by Nov. 1 of next year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dandenault noted that there are also plans to work with their local Member of Parliament to move things along more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re going to try to do in the six months is try to work with our local MP to see if there is some way that we can connect it to Veterans [Affairs] Canada. Right now, it\u2019s not connected - it\u2019s a community built initiative. But the idea is to see if maybe it can fit into one of their programs to make it faster. But I think it comes across well that Arnold\u2019s mission is sort of to make sure that it gets it done,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has got to be done, it\u2019s overdue. It\u2019s long, long, long overdue,\u201d added Raymond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those interested in ordering a veteran grave marker can send an email to vetsmemorialmarkers@gmail.com or call 450-538-1500. Veterans include anyone that served in the Canadian Armed Forces, whether in battle or not.<\/p>\n

Listen to the full interview with Raymond and Dandenault below:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A member of the Royal Canadian Legion in Philipsburg Branch #82 has been working on a veteran grave marker project with the goal of expanding it nationwide by next year, hopefully in time for next year’s Remembrance Day.\u00a0 Arnold Raymond has been a volunteer with the Royal Canadian Legion in Philipsburg, Quebec Branch #82 since…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":192022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,221],"tags":[633,32280,32279,710,634,2701,2699,3021,3007,12822],"radio":[246],"origine":[274,259,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191740"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192637,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191740\/revisions\/192637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191740"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=191740"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=191740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}