LEST WE FORGET

Soon it will be November the eleventh. This is the day we honor all the men and women who served in the wars. There were many wars, World Wars,Korean War,Viet Nam war,going back even to the War of 1812. Many of our Acadian Ancestors fought in these wars, and many non Acadians did also.

The gentleman in the photo is Amedee a Fulgence Breau, he fought in both World War one and World War two. His grandfather was the brother of my great great grandmother. My friend Yollanda sent me the photo. Most of these men were very young when they went to war, I have a page on my acadian-roots.com website with a list of Acadians who went to war, some as young as eighteen years. Can you imagine? Eighteen, nineteen and twenty years old, going to war and never returning? It must have been so terrible, the families at home praying for their safe returns?

The following article was in a book called the Forgotten Soldiers by Ronald Cormier . He interviewed some acadian soldiers, and this paticular one was a Pius Girouard from Bouctouche. Here is an exhert from his story while he was in Italy.

One day leaving with a reconnaissance patrol; " There were six of us that the captain sent towards a wood next to a small river where the Germans were suppose to be. We started out and after a short while we could hear rifle fire from one direction, then a short one from another. We stopped. There was a corporal or sergeant with us. We sat down around 3 am. We could see that the situation was dangerous. The Sergeant said " If you don't tell anyone, we are going to turn around. Or else we will all be killed." We could hear the Germans talking.

Another part he says, It was impossible for soldiers fighting in a foreign country not to come in contact with some local people who acclaimed them as liberators. Pius Girouard had memories of some of these Italian people who were living in poverty. In Italy , he said, they did not have any soap, they would wash their clothes in small steams. we on the other hand had soap we hardly used at all, so we would trade our soap for a dish of spaghetti.

Further along in his story, Pius talks about moving towards a village, and arriving at a stream , they heard some voices coming from the other side, they crossed to see, and they met men, women and children, with mules. They told Pius and his group that the Germans had set fire to their homes and machine gunned them. Pius's troop carried the children in their arms and put the women on the mules and helped them across the stream. The women and children were barefeet. They were happy we had saved their lives, they shook our hands ,embraced us and cried.

There are many more stories of events such as these out there, many who went in the wars, are trying to forget what happened out there and some remember the touching stories.

Yesterday George and I went to see the movie Passchendaele ,it was a story about World War One and it was a movie that was very well done ,and it sort of showed us some of the things that they did, the marching in mud, and water and the trenches filled with water, it looked so real.

So many men lost their lives out there, the movie was in memory of a Michael Dunn.

So let us all remember these soldiers, men ,and women who served their country on November the eleventh.

God bless each and every one of them, those who lost their lives and those who returned..

Aline

Am adding the following information I got from my friend, I know she will approve of this. Enjoy.

About Uncle Amedee.This uncle was wounded in the Battle of Ypres which I understand was no picnic He was also Gased by the Germans as were many others.. and they were all so young. My other uncle Hermas Son of Fulgence was only 17 years old when he joined up, he was in the same Regiment as was Cyriac Daigle of St. Louis de Kent, the Regiment was the 165th an Acadian Regiment.But this uncle had lied about his age and when they found out they sent him back to England to work from there.mom also had a couple of Cousins Rosaire Bourque and Albert sons of Caesar and Scolastique Breau daughter of Charles and Marguerite Bourque..So Marie Blanche your Grandmother would be Scholastique's great aunt.Albert was killed overseas.I am not sure if I told you that Frank was Oversea's during the 2nd world war he also had quite a career over there, He was in the Navy and the Ship he was on H.M.C.S. Stormont was later purchased by Aristotle Onassis 2nd husband of Jackie Kennedy..Frank joined at 18 years of age HugsYollanda