It's a small branch of the Legion, but every year No. 349 holds a Remembrance Day service of no little significance to the Saskatchewan Hospital community, veterans throughout the Battlefords and their families.
With a two o'clock start time, members of the community's two other legions, Branches No. 9 and No. 70, support the service, ensuring a colour party is in attendance and representation from zone and district levels.
The upper levels of government are always in attendance as well, this year in the persons MP Gerry Ritz and MLA Herb Cox.
Held in the sunny chapel area of the hospital, the gathering includes staff, residents, Legion members and family of veterans.
President Irene Klassen thanked everyone for attending, fellow Legion members and dignitaries.
"Somehow you are always there for us," she said.
Branch No. 349 had its beginnings when, following the Second World War, more than 200 veterans from all over the province found it necessary to be admitted and seek treatment at Saskatchewan Hospital. Many veterans returned as staff members, as well. Concerned about their care and welfare, it was decided, because the hospital was a community within itself, to form a Legion branch to ensure the resident veterans would not be forgotten.
Today's Branch No. 349 is the melding of the Royal Canadian Legion branch, chartered in 1948, and the ladies' auxiliary, formed in 1949 and closed in 2009 after 60 years in existence. The support services always provided by the auxiliary continue through the branch and the auxiliary members who are now members of the branch itself.
This year's message was delivered by Rev. Francis Patterson of Third Avenue United Church.
In today's society, when Remembrance Day is, for many, another day off school, or off work, she asked, "Why should be we care? Why should we bother?"
Using the personal story of her son who made a pilgrimage to a great-uncle's grave in France and who toured the Juno Beach Centre, a museum and cultural centre at Courseulles-sur-Mer, The centre presents the war effort made by all Canadians, civilian and military alike, both at home and on the various fronts during the Second World War.
It was a life changing event for him, said Patterson.
The question "why should we care?" never crosses the minds of the older generations, those who experienced war time and its losses, Patterson said. Only by reminding younger generations the true cost of war, through the blood of those who died, will they move from "indifference to care."
