'Emotional' Remembrance Day ceremony unites Islanders 0 to 100

A ceremony of remembrance at a community care home in Charlottetown brought together Second World War veterans, a school band and a choir of kindergarten children Tuesday. 

Remembrance Day is Friday, Nov. 11, but the Mount Continuing Care facility held its service early.

"I just think it's important for our country to remember," said Zoe Nichols, who played music for the gathering with the East Wiltshire School Grade 9 band. 

"People gave up their lives," she added. "If you don't really care about it, then they kind of did it for nothing."

'Always emotional'

That memorializing is important to 91-year-old P.E.I. Second World War veteran Lloyd Gates.

"I haven't heard a band like that since I was in Holland," he told CBC News. "It's always emotional." 

He's been back to Holland about a dozen times, and notes the warm reception Canadian veterans continue to receive there is "unreal."

'You're never the same'

Gates shared detailed memories of landing on the beach in France during the war, during which his brother was killed.

"I never had any sleep, I don't think, for weeks upon end because there was always something firing. Noise, noise, noise was all there was," he said, noting he was then sent to a rest camp for a week. 

He also recalled entering Brussels just hours after the Allies liberated the Belgian city.

"You're never the same again, either," he said of the horrors of war. "It's always there." 

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