I once stood on hallowed ground, the tread of my shined boots resting atop the everlasting footprints of the past.
In the silence, I heard the quiet pride of generations before me. The cold breeze held the last whispers of many great men.
Until that point in my life, I believed I was good for nothing. I held fast to the notion that I had no value, nothing of merit to offer this complex world of ours – yet there I stood, shoulder to shoulder with this country’s very best, on ground broken by heroes of old.
I was 18 when my name became Soldier, born again into a life anew. A life dedicated to others and ideals far bigger than self. I was 23 when I learned that heroes can die. I had understood that fact in theory, but it wasn’t until a drizzled day in August that I felt its truth fully.
In August of 2006, I carried a fallen brother, swaddled in the silk and satin of our nation’s flag. I can no longer gaze upon our simple little leaf without seeing the blood hidden in the red. They say that the sound a flag makes in the wind is the sound of freedom. I am solemn in the belief that freedom can sound an awful lot like grief.
Three. That’s how many men we’d lose from our unit during my time in service.
Starker. Wilmot. And Boomer. Three names etched onto the fabric of my soul. Heroes. All of them. Lest I forget.
When I believed I had no value, no voice, no courage, no purpose, my country showed me otherwise. I came from a broken home rife with addiction, pills, violence, disease, and despair; and at eighteen, I found a family of a different kind. A band. A band of brothers. We few. We damned few…
In the years after my service, I had hoped that the loss of heroes would cease. But this was a wish held on the lips of a fool. Rondeau died in 2022. Penny before him. Atkin, Turner. A war of the mind seems as potent as the one fought among sand and stone in lands far from home.
I once stood on hallowed ground, and when I left, I left with ghosts. I carry these specters in everything I do. Every action I take, every breath I am privileged to inhale — I remember them. And at the going down of the sun, I will shed a tear for them. All of them.
Lest I forget. Lest we forget. We all stand on hallowed ground.
Falkland resident Matthew Heneghan graduated from Salmon Arm Secondary and is the author of the books A Medic's Mind and Woven in War.
