A tour to Remember

Caitlin Wager and her father Rob shared a moment on Dieppe Beach during their recent Remembrance Tour.

A few days ago, Grade 11 student Caitlin Wager and several of her Uxbridge Secondary School classmates stopped on a bridge in the Netherlands. The overpass was situated amid newly blooming tulips at a popular springtime tourist spot, called Keukenhof. Not surprisingly, the teenagers decided to take some selfies. Suddenly, a Dutch woman approached the Uxbridge girls, and Caitlin thought the woman was going to ask her take a photo for her.

“No,” the Dutch woman said. “I want to take a picture of you.”

“Pardon?” Caitlin asked, not quite understanding.

“All of you,” the woman repeated. “I want a picture of all of you.”

And when the girls asked why, she said, “Because you’re Canadians.” (more…)

Men not machines

Logan Carswell remembers his brother during Highway of Heroes LAV Monument unveiling.
Logan Carswell remembers his brother during Highway of Heroes LAV Monument unveiling.

He was the fifth person to speak at the ceremony last Saturday. He followed the MC, the mayor, the military commander, and one of the sponsors of the event. But Logan Caswell’s story about his big brother, Darryl, stopped the audience in its tracks. Logan remembered his 12th birthday. That day, June 11, 2007, Darryl Caswell was going to call from overseas with special birthday greetings. The phone rang at the Caswell’s home in Bowmanville, Ont., that day, but it wasn’t his brother on the line.

“They told us Darryl had been killed by an IED while on a supply convoy north of Kandahar City,” Logan Caswell said. (more…)