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The Airdrie Legion will be Welcoming Home Our Troops from Afghanistan tomorrow, Saturday August 20th/ 2011 starting at 1PM at the Airdrie Legion.
We will have North Caribou Aviation's F-18 BBQ in attendance cooking up some "top flight" hamburgers plus we will also have our our outdoor beer gardens to enjoy.
We are encouraging anyone and everyone in the area to come out wearing your best Canadian outfits and bringing any flags you may have to wave. We will have a brief ceremony where will will recognize our Afghanistan vets in attendance.
Hope to see you in Airdrie tomorrow for Our Welcome Home to the Troops!
F-18 BBQ 1.jpg (75.66 KiB) Viewed 1614 times
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Legion Welcome Home poster.jpg (101.61 KiB) Viewed 1614 times
Sky .... thanks for posting that, and I hope that anyone within reasonable driving distance will take a few minutes on-site to support these young men and women who will be very glad to be home and with their families.
Thanks for the kind words Fog! We are modestly hoping for 500-1000 people but would be very happy to have a whole lot more! I think of the kind of turnout that the "Highway of Heroes" manages to attract in Ontario for the repatriation of one of our fallen troops and think Airdrie and Southern Alberta can show up to thank our returning Armed Forces personnel.
I hope to have some photos to share after the weekend is over.
We had a fantastic Welcome Home to the Troops at the Airdrie Legion yesterday. We had the perfect weather and more than 600 people in attendance. We had 3 Afghanistan veterans present who we had a tremendous standing ovation for. We also presented the fellows with a very special commemorative Afghanistan Veteran hat that they can wear with great pride. We know we have many more Afghanistan vets who will be returning to the Airdrie area over the next few months and we plan to present each and every one of them with one of these special caps when they get home.
For future reference, the Airdrie Legion is just west of Edmonton Trail (on the west side of Highway 2) about two blocks north of the RCMP detachment in Airdrie.
Thank-you for doing your part in that get-together, and supporting the welcome home of these fine men and women. I'm sure it held a very high degree of significance to those Veterans.
It would also be a good time to acknowlege the "Dieppe Raid" which took place on the 19th of August 1942 ... the largest single loss of Canadian armed forces lives in our history when 907 Canadians were killed in one day ... most before 0900.
My Step Father went on the beach as a Sgt in The Royal Regiment of Canada and by the end of the day was the RSM because everyone else above him in the Other Ranks was either dead, wounded, or captured.
Very fitting that almost to the hour, as our direct combat operations against terrorism will cease, other Canadians were launching their fight against tyranny during WW2.
The Old Fogducker
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Last edited by The Old Fogducker on Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for pointing out the Dieppe Raid's similar date Fog! I think the two together make for an excellent reason to annually remember the sacrifices of our troops over many, many years, conflicts and peace keeping missions.
