Marshall Strong

Out of the trip so far today without a question was the best day of our trip. Starting the day off, we went to a French WWI gravesite. It was sickening at how many people gave up their lives for France. There were over 60 000 crosses for the dead, not including the four mass graves that were the resting place for 25 000 soldiers who were never identified and probably never will be. Following this we went to two other cemeteries, the first a British Commonwealth site and the other a German gravesite. At the British gravesite we performed a small ceremony for the fallen that gave their lives for the freedom we take for granted every day. I got to read a small paragraph to my classmates during the ceremony. We placed flowers under the Sword of Sacrifice and then we all got some Vimy medals. I also saw two interesting gravesites, one was a German stone, and rather than have a British emblem it featured an Iron Cross. The other was a Canadian stone which said the body of an unknown soldier was randomly removed and brought back to Canada to rest in the Imperial War Museum. The German site was cool as well, however they are far more gloomy. The crosses are black and have the names of four soldiers per grave. The trees there were picked because they did not need much pruning because their cemeteries are maintained through donations and done by German youth groups. I also saw some interesting crosses which had the last name Stark, which is my last name (strong) in German. The gloomy morning ended when we visited the greatest Canadian site...Vimy Ridge!!! Here we took pictures of the Vimy monument and had a couple of class photos under the Mother of Canada weeping for her sons. After, we went to the trenches and saw the tunnels used to help earn the Canadian victory. This ended the WWI part of the trip. I would like to thank the lost and the fallen who gave their lives for our freedom.


RIP

Marshall Strong

Grade 12 Rundle Academy