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WHrTBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1987, PAGE 5 He was an old man by my terms, then: his hands crip- pled with arthritis so bad he could hardly hold a draft beer. When he walked, he limped, barely dragging his left leg behind him. "War," the young man pontificated, "is an old man's trick inflicted on the young." But the old man -he must have been all of forty, maybe forty-five -bounced in his chair. "If your country calléd you, you wouldn't go? If a war was declared, you'd sit at home with the women?" He laughed at his own joke. "No," I said, "I likely wouldn't go." Being seventeen has its strengths. One of them is being sure of all the answers to all of the questions. "He wouldn't go!" The old man couldn't seem to believe his ears. To the other two patrons in the restaurant, he directed his comments: "He wouldn't go! This chicken- livered young ninny would hide behind skirts!" His laughter had turned to a snarl. The year was 1956. The Second Great War had been over for il years. To me, that was a lifetime. I was six when it ended. I can still recall the army convoys, and decorating my tricycle with red, white and blue streamers to mark a Victory or the end of the war or something. But war belonged to another age, another generation. "Naw," I said, "I wouldn't go. See, if nobody went, then there wouldn't be a war, right? Why should I go off to war to shoot some poor German or Russian or whoever the enemy is by then? He likely would just as soon stay home himself. I I had read 'All Quiet on The Western Front' and I felt enormously superior. I did know that this old man did get spiffied up each Remembrance Day,.with his beret, his blue blazer with WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan Fight should be over the Legion crest, and ne would stand by the cenotaph untill his gnarled knuckles turned purple. He turned to me then. "Get out," he said, quietly. "Get out or my restaurant and stay out of my restaurant. Just walk out that door and don't come back until the war is over." I never did figure out what he meant by the last line. Thirty-one years have passed. Every year we gather to honor the war dead, and in doing so pay lip service to the living. We glorify their efforts but never do justice to the sacrifice demanded of these young men. Think of it: any male born between 1911 and 1927 had an excellent chance of being invited to serve his country. Those who so served had an excellent chance of not being alive in 1945. This was brought home to me sharply last week when I was talking to Mel Garland, president of Durham College. We were looking over a couple of his squadron photographs, one while he was a Pilot Officer training in Quebec about 1943; the second while he was a Flying Of- ficer overseas. His finger marched down the line of jaunty looking young men. "That one didn't make it....this one went down in the woods in Quebec....This one..." What strikes me now as a father is the ages of the young men. Men? I'm old enough to call them kids. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. I'm sure many lied about their ages to get in. We sent them off to die. So each year we remember those who never did make it back. But of those who did make it back, we pay little more than lip service to their sacrifices. A veteran on full disability gets a monthly income of about $1,500. But that $1,500 a month shows what we really think of the sacrifice made by these young men in that long-ago war. Think of it: $1,500 a month is about what we pay a construction laborer today. Worse may be the way we treat our war veterans, and the hoops we make them jump through in order to gain the pension and benefits to which they are entitled. They still have to fight for everything they get. My old friend in the restaurant could not understand how anyone would not leap to the defence of his country. That, as a seventeen-year-old, seemed quaint to me. I cannot now understand why war veterans must fight still for every benefit they get. Surely a full disability pen- sion is worth more than unskilled labor. Surely veterans should not face years of fight to gain full health benefits. Surely we don't expect all veterans to fight al] the way to the grave. Runoff problem to be studied at commercial site As a result of public works depar- tment concerns over storm water runoff, Whitby planning staff will further review the site plan of a proposed shopping plaza on Dundas St. E., east of Garrard Rd. The application by Rick Gay is for a rezoning and a site plan for a 32,860 sq. ft. plaza, to include a restaurant. Town planning staff had first recommended approval of the rezoning and site plan. But, after councillor Joe Bugelli noted works department concerns at last week's administrative committee session, planning director Bob Short instead recommended that the application be either tabled to address problems or the bylaw be amended to place the property in a holding zone until solutions were found. Works department said surface run-off from the property drains in a northeasterly through cemetery lands. Normally storm run-off from a development can be contained on site but the property in this case is too low on the north side to be drained to the existing storm sewer on Dundas. The department says a "desirable option" is to construct a storm sewer outfall from the development to a Town storm New lineup announced At Whitby council Monday night, Mayor Bob Attersley announced the new lineup for Town commit- tees for 1988. Councillors Marcel Brunelle and Joe Bugelli move from ad- ministrative committee to operations committee along with councillor Tom Edwards. ..Councillors Ross Batten. Joe Drumm and Gerry Emm will make up administrative committee. Chairmen for each of the com- mittees will be decided at each meeting next Monday night. BUYONE OUT ONE Sale continues by popular demand on a large selection of patterns! LARGEST SELECTION OF BORDERS AT LOWEST PRICES YOU'VE EVER SEEN THE WALLPAPER CENTRE OSHAWA 140 Simcoe St. S. (Just South of John) 579-1655 AJAX 37 Harwood Ave. S. Between Hwy. 2 and 401 686-0719 SCARBORO 793 Markham Rd. nthe Painted Post Plaza 431-4458 'EN sewer which was built as an outfall the developer present an for the Garrard Rd. storm sewer to engineering design of the storm Corbett Creek. sewer system and that tests be Works department suggests that made when constructed. Committee members also asked if a turning lane to the development could be constructed on Dundas, another works recommendation. [:R()Xtoni