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ESQUESING HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER November - December 1991 FADING VETERANS BY JAMES EMMERSON When I left home last June 29 to attend the unveiling of the Georgetown High School memorial to former students killed in WWII and the Korean War, it struck me as the strangest of ironies that the book I put down was William L. Shirer's The Nightmare Years. Shirer was the CBC radio correspondent in pre-war Europe. Imperishably inscribed in my memory is the one broadcast he began by saying: "This is Munich, Germany, calling. The last 11th hour attempt to save the peace of Europe and avert a world war over the Sudetenland has just begun here in the Fuhrerbau..." It was a time when the airwaves echoed to the rantings of Adolf Hitler, taunting what he called the "decadent democracies" in their weakness and indecision in coping with his growing threat. My Dad used to sit with his head practically in our radio. I asked him one day "Why are you getting so worried and upset by all this?" "If there's a war," he replied, "You may have to go." Me go to war? I thought. How ridiculous could you be? That's ludicrous! Crazy! I was 16 at the time, in high school, a Glenn Miller fan and envious of those who could afford an Essex or an Overland. I did go to war, eventually, along with a lot of high school buddies, some of whom were not lucky enough to come back. Their names are now inscribed in the honour roll in the lobby of the high school, thanks to the High School Centennial Committee and the work of former teacher Jessie Glynn assisted by Jean Ruddell. It seems incredible that next year, 1989, will be the 50th since Hitler stormed across the Polish border starting a world conflict which claimed an estimated 30 million lives. The years pass. The veterans' ranks grow thinner. Those who can't remember grow in number while those who can't forget grow fewer. Hardest burden to bear for fading veterans are modern-day critics who flay those who served as victims of foolish folly. One such writer, some years ago, pondered the tragic cost in Canadian lives then sneered cynically... "for what?" A Dutch immigrant, ironically from Georgetown, gave him the answer. Rita Vanden Top wrote with the passion of anger, the eloquence of honesty. Here are her words: "I'll tell you for what! I was 12 years old when I crept out of that potato cellar after 1