Belmont secondary students joined peers across the country last Friday morning for an online Remembrance Day ceremony that included some special guests.
Schools from Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and elsewhere connected digitally with one another, as well as with Canadian Forces personnel in Afghanistan, to reflect on the sacrifice of soldiers and the importance of remembrance.
Belmont students were chosen to recite In Flanders Fields for the ceremony and were first to ask a few questions of the serving soldiers.
Three students asked questions such as whether language barriers play a role in their duties in Afghanistan and how often the soldiers get to talk to their families.
The soldiers spoke of learning some basic phrases and of the complexities of regional dialects. They also answered that thanks to technology like that which made the pan-Canada ceremony possible, they are able to video-phone their families daily.
“It’s one day of the year, so we can remember who died for our country,” said Nikki Galet, Grade 11. “We’ve never done anything like this before. We’ve done a conference on video before, but not this big.”
“It was definitely a cool and unique experience,” said Julianna MacDonald, Grade 12. “My grandpa was a soldier in one of the wars. He passed away not because of the war, so it’s cool to remember all the people that he fought with. He fought alongside a lot of soldiers that didn’t make it past the war.”