GLADSTONE, Man. – Joe Fraser wasn’t interested in sitting around hearing the same old war stories time and again.
So he avoided the legion hall and hung out at a younger, livelier club.
But as the years passed, Fraser found himself being drawn back toward the Royal Canadian Legion by an ache for something he hadn’t had since the end of the war.
“Comradeship,” said Fraser, a Second World War veteran, as he reflected on how he became a staunch legion supporter more than 30 years ago.
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“There’s just nothing like that bond that exists between men who have served together.”
But Fraser knows the bond of common service in the military won’t keep the legion going, because ever since the end of the Second World War there have been fewer people in the armed forces.
As he and Portage La Prairie, Man., legion member Harry Bray discussed the subject last week in Gladstone, they both declared the legion has not only changed with the times, but is willing to do what it takes to keep the organization at the centre of community life.
“It’s in a transitional period now,” said Fraser. “The old guys like me are going out and the young people are coming in.”
Bray said legions across the country have opened up to new people for many years. New members don’t have to have served in the military or be related to veterans. And present members, including longtime ones like him, are willing to accept and embrace the interests of new recruits.
“The entertainment we put on now is mostly for the younger people, stuff we sometimes don’t even like,” said Bray with a laugh.
Keeping the legion alive is vital, they said, because in rural communities it is a social bulwark, and that’s a legacy that has to be handed on. Fewer than 1,000 people live in his town of Gladstone, a small farming town northwest of Winnipeg. Yet the legion has a membership of 333.
Keeping the legion broad-based is the challenge, they said.
There is hardly a small town or village on the Prairies that doesn’t have a legion hall. Some Manitoba branches in tiny villages have as few as four members, but they are still active.
Most branches were formed after veterans of the First World War returned to their communities and wanted a place to go to keep alive the camaraderie they had shared.
Though they were often seen by some as little more than drinking halls, legion branches quickly took on the role of service clubs, offering programs, money and support for a wide range of community activities.
Bray said that has continued. The Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Command of the legion this year donated $53,000 to charities, $3,000 in scholarships and $7,000 in bursaries.
The legion’s focus tends to be on helping seniors and youth. Bray said the support for young people is what keeps the aging organization and its membership relevant and what will help secure its future.
“The big thing is youth – that’s our future,” said Bray, who was in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1952 to 1955.
Both Fraser and Bray said they think elementary and high school students are not taught enough about Canada’s military history.
They worry that the sacrifices the war generations made and the freedoms they secured will not be known or appreciated by upcoming generations.
“They won’t know if we don’t teach them,” said Fraser.
Both men believe that rather than slowly fading away, events such as Remembrance Day are becoming more relevant to young people.
“We have standing room only,” said Bray about the Portage indoor service for Remembrance Day.
“The community really gets behind the poppy campaign. There seems to be a renewed
interest.”
On this day in the legion hall, as Winston Churchill stares defiantly out of his portrait, the hopes that young people can be brought in to continue the legacy of Canada’s veterans seem possible. While Bray and Fraser could swap stories from military life in the 1940s and 1950s, it’s doubtful whether the people in their 30s and 40s at other tables have any military background at all.
Bray said it will take two or three years to tell whether the legion has successfully managed to bring in enough new members to stabilize the organization’s loss of aging veterans.
