D7

Alan Cochrane

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As Remembrance Day draws near, most of us will pin a poppy to our shirt and think for a moment about what it means, but there are some people who carry the spirit of remembrance with them every day of the year.

Trapper Cane is one of them. He's a former soldier who nearly died in a parachute accident and spent years recovering. As the president of the Canadian Army Veterans (CAV) motorcycle group, he spends most of his time criss-crossing this country meeting with other veterans in special care homes, listening to their stories and spreading the word that the sacrifices of the past and the present have to be recognized.

With his long hair, bushy beard and black leather riding gear, Trapper doesn't exactly fit the spit-and-polish stereotype of a former military man who has dedicated his life to supporting veterans. He walks slowly with a limp and a cane, and wears a black leather vest covered with pins and patches that document his military service. And when you see this tough-looking biker guy step off his motorcycle and kneel before the old veterans, you can tell he means business.

I first met Trapper this summer when he visited Moncton for the Atlanticade Motorcycle Festival. On that Sunday afternoon, he led the parade of hundreds of bikers to the veterans' health care centre next to the Moncton Legion. Many of the Second World War veterans were lined up under a tent to watch the parade and Trapper spent an hour circulating with the veterans, taking the time to get down on one knee to meet and talk with them.

A native of Cobourg, Ont., he enlisted in the 1970s and served with various units to become an airborne unit sniper and mountain warfare instructor. He was injured in a parachute accident that left him partially paralyzed. He came up with the idea for the veterans' motorcycle group while lying in a hospital bed and now travels across the country.

"I put 146,000 kilometres on the bike over the last nine months," Trapper told me when I caught up to him by phone last week.

He says the veterans love to see the motorcycle parades roll up to their special care homes.

"It brings back the memory of the roar."

While he enjoys visiting with all veterans, Trapper has a special place in his heart for the old guys who served as dispatch riders during the Second World War. I wanted to talk to him about that because my own father served as a dispatch rider in Europe in 1944 and '45.

Armies started using motorcycles in the First World War because they were faster than bicycles, and by the beginning of the Second World War Canada flirted with the idea of turning horse-mounted cavalry units into motorcycle-mounted soldiers. That idea never really worked out but the motorcycles were still valuable for jobs like scouting, reconnaissance, checkpoints and delivering hand-written messages that couldn't be sent by telephone or radio.

My father often talked about riding the Indian and Harley-Davidson motorcycles around England and Europe, but I didn't know much about the training until Trapper told me about a place called the "Devil's Punch Bowl."

The Canadian version of the Harley-Davidson was called the WLC, a twin-cylinder, 45 cubic inch (740 cc) bike with a little bit of suspension, a tough leather seat with a couple of springs and usually fitted out with the classic Thompson sub-machinegun or the meaner-looking Sten gun.

The riders got their motorcycle training at a place near London called the "Devil's Punch Bowl" which was essentially a big gravel pit where the riders could learn how to ride the two-wheeled monsters through dirt, sand, gravel, grass, water and mud. Trapper says the final bit of their training was to ride down through the punch bowl and race up over the top, where they actually got airborne.

A photo taken of a Canadian motorcycle rider was made into a recruiting poster, which compared the soldier on the motorcycle to a knight on horseback.

The slogan, which appeared in both English and French versions of the poster, said "Canada's New Army needs men like you!" The poster formed the basis of the logo for the Canadian Army Veterans motorcycle group when it was formed in 2003.

As he travels around the country, Trapper says the spirit of Remembrance Day seems to be growing every year, mainly because of the number of young Canadians who have been lost in Afghanistan.

"The sacrifices of the present bring home the remembrance of the sacrifices of the past. The sacrifices are ongoing. Our boys and girls are putting it all on the line to protect the freedom of others, and it's our duty to make it matter. It has to be done."

He says Canada's mission in Afghanistan has created a whole new generation of veterans who need to be remembered and thought of. He tells the story of a young Canadian soldier who lost both his legs in Afghanistan but wants to be rehabilitated and go back for another tour as a door gunner. He encourages the new veterans to visit schools and connect with children to explain to them that war is ugly but soldiers need to fight against oppression to bring freedom to people who can't find it by themselves.

"They are heroes, but they don't look for attention, they just go back to their communities and their lives. They are all around us. If Canadians knew that all around them are everyday heroes that don't look for any attention, it would blow their minds."

Canada has lost 133 soldiers in Afghanistan since 2002, most of them as the result of improvised explosive devices. For the entire list of names and photos, visit www.forces.gc.ca/site/focus/fallen-disparus/index-eng.asp.

Next week, a Moncton soldier who was wounded in Afghanistan in 2007 will be among the first to receive the new Sacrifice Medal from Governor General Michaelle Jean during a ceremony in Ottawa.

And on Nov. 11, Metro Moncton will hold its usual Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Moncton Coliseum. For the veterans who are too feeble to make it, the Legion will be making the rounds to various special care homes for individual services.

* Alan Cochrane is an editor-at-large for the Times & Transcript. His column appears each Tuesday. He can be reached by e-mail at cochrana@timestranscript.com