Wapanohk Community School in Thompson hosted an Indigenous Veterans Day ceremony Nov. 8 to recognize the contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis soldiers who fought for Canada in the First World War and Second World War as well as other conflicts and peacekeeping missions.
Over 12,000 Indigenous people enlisted in the Canadian Armed Force during the two world wars, which occurred before First Nations members had the right to vote in Canada, said Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakank Grand Chief Garrison Settee, and 300 died.
“They never came home,” he said. “Today we live in a beautiful country, the greatest country in the world, because of the sacrifices of the veterans. We must never forget the sacrifices made by Indigenous people in foreign fields.”
One of those veterans was Sandy Beardy, who was born in Thicket Portage in 1920 and died in 2001 and is a member of Manitoba’s Order of the Buffalo Hunt. He and his brother Rose, then aged 21 and 22, enlisted in August 1942. His memories of the war that he wrote down a couple of years before he died were shared with the audience by his granddaughter Starlett Beardy, who visited Rose Beardy’s grave in France last summer.
Shortly before Rose Beardy died, he told Sandy that he had had a dream in which he saw the glories of heaven in the sky and said that, if he died, Sandy should not weep for him but continue fighting.
“I was not prepared for the day when the news was told to me that my brother had been killed,” wrote Sandy in his memoir read by Starlett, recalling how he was taken to see Rose’s body where it lay under a blanket. “The blankets each one of us carried on our backs were not only our blankets but our coffins as well. The moment was very hard on me. The hurt was devastating.”
Lisa Lankshear read Wapanohk student council’s dedication to Indigenous veterans.
“We thank you and we salute those who made the ultimate sacrifice."
