Teens pen their thoughts of Remembrance

Students from Rockheights Middle School prepare poppies for a No Stone Left Alone ceremony with Sgt (Ret'd) Jim MacMillan-Murphy, 1st Vice President, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 172. Photo credit: Rock Heights Middle School

Students from Rockheights Middle School prepare poppies for a No Stone Left Alone ceremony with Sgt (Ret’d) Jim MacMillan-Murphy, 1st Vice President, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 172. Photo credit: Rock Heights Middle School

Peter Mallett, Staff Writer ~

In an effort to place themselves in the worn, muddy boots of First World War soldiers, Grade 8 students at Rockheights Middle School in Esquimalt have written letters from the trenches.

The essay assignment had young teens imagining themselves on the frontline, living in the water-filled shabby battlefield trenches, longing to be home with their loved ones.

“It is absolutely horrendous here,” writes one student as soldier Johnny. “I cannot believe the lies we were told. Nothing is the way they said it would be…We spend all day crouched in the mud and trench water. The smell is unbearable. Gunpowder, human feces, rotting food and dead bodies are a constant reminder that this isn’t a nightmare but surviving what war is like.”

Another fictional soldier named Robert attempts to be positive about their plight in his letter home.

“The calm deceased bodies of those who have fallen lie at our feet while we fight to stay from lying dead among them. I am here to serve my part and to keep a future for all that live. I am here to keep you safe; to fight for a future. Please know you two are my everything, you both are what is keeping me alive every moment.”

The writing assignment was preparation for their participation in last Friday’s No Stone Left Alone ceremony at Esquimalt Veterans Cemetery, God’s Acre.

Since mid-October, the 75 students have been learning everything they can about the bloodiest conflict in Canadian military history that claimed 60,000 lives in the brutality of trench warfare.

“Social Studies teacher Todd Hallett starts the lesson by telling a true story of two local Esquimalt teens who signed up for war, thus helping students to have a local connection and age related connection to war times” says Maryanne Trofimuk, Rockheights Middle School Principal. “Then the children learn about war and the end result of their writing assignment is both heartwarming and heart wrenching.”

One letter, penned by student Gerry Duffy was selected by a panel of teachers at the school to be read aloud during the No Stone Left Alone ceremony. The gathering included current and former military members, emergency services workers, Esquimalt Legionnaires, Esquimalt Lions Club member, a SD61 School Board Trustee and a member of the SD61 Senior Leadership Team, and other community groups.

No Stone Left Alone campaign was founded in Edmonton in 2011 in an effort to recognize the nation’s fallen soldiers by placing a poppy on the headstones at military fields of honour. Rockheights Middle School became the first school in British Columbia to participate in 2014. Trofimuk, a former military reservist who served with Victoria’s 11th Service Battalion in 2002 and 2003, noted 20 per cent of her student body have family members in the military and already have “a great understanding of the sacrifices made by today’s Canadian Armed Forces personnel because of their personal connections.”

This year’s ceremony also involved all 215 of the school’s Grade 6, 7 and 8 students cutting over 3,000 paper poppies to place on fallen soldier’s graves. at God’s Acre. The burial ground was originally built by Rear Admiral George Fowler-Hastings in 1868 as a place of rest for Royal Navy Sailors, but has since expanded to encompass all members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The ceremony also included a First Nations drumming performance by students and an extended moment of silence to remember the dead. At the end of the ceremony students proceeded into the graveyard and pinned their hand-made poppies on fallen soldier’s grave markers.

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