He dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day with the Screaming Eagles, his brothers.

He stared down the enemy in Belgium, Holland, and Germany.

He saw the horrors of the camps and helped take Hitler’s house in the mountains of Bavaria. Jim “Pee Wee” Martin, 101, died earlier this month.

With his Jewish mother weeping after hearing her brothers and sisters were murdered by the Nazis, Alex Polowin wondered what he could do. He wanted to try to help her remaining relatives.

“I felt I owed it to them try to save their lives.” Born to a Jewish family in Lithuania, his parents brought him to Canada when he was three years old.

14 years later, in the middle of the Second World War, he lied about his age to enlist in the Navy.

Airborne! When his father took him to the train to head off to the war, he looked him in the eye and said words Vince Speranza never forgot. As he was about to jump for the first time, those words came rushing back.

"Son, don't do anything to shame the family."

A combat medic when the Americans stared down Nazis in the frozen Ardennes, he saw everything and carried it home. His wish for his 100th birthday?

To hear Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor on the church organ. But he died the day before his celebration.

Rest, Robert Heinzen. To remember him, the show went on.

The show must go on.

Stoker 1st Class Ernest Howell likely wouldn't have been in Panama that night if his father hadn't died two years earlier back in Nova Scotia.

https://twitter.com/PatDonahoeArmy/status/1552430609355653123

Born to Newfoundlanders in Cape Breton, Ernest headed across the pond to serve in the Merchant Navy when he was 18 years old.

Three years later he was in the Royal Navy.

Frank Slade was helping his Aunt Ethel run her gas station in Goldsboro, North Carolina, when there was a knock on the door.

Two men told him he had a choice between joining the U.S. Army for the Korean War or returning to Canada.

What did he do? He returned to Canada. But at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, he bumped into a buddy from Newfoundland.

Don Penney was in a Canadian Army uniform and about to head to Korea. He told Frank to join him.

The next day, Frank Slade signed up.

“He represented this country before it even recognized Native Americans as citizens, and he did so with humility and grace.”

The greatest and a veteran of the Merchant Marine.

Wa-Tho-Huk. Jim Thorpe.
espn.com/olympics/story… Before he left for the place they called school in Carlisle, the place where they tried to strip Native Americans of their cultures, his father spoke his last words to him.

“Son, you are an Indian. I want you to show other races what an Indian can do.”

Is there a maximum length for hair?

No.

https://twitter.com/canadianforces/status/1544306513975574535

Is unnatural-coloured hair acceptable?

Yes.

They tried to force their religion upon him. Canada tried to strip him from the customs of his people.

But Mike Mountain Horse resisted. “My Indian clothes, consisting of blanket, breech cloth, leggings, shirt and moccasins, were removed.”

They scrubbed him. The principal cut his long hair as he cried. They issued him new clothes. Mike Mountain Horse was six years old.

“Don’t cry any more,” his brother said.

Born in Ireland, he joined the Royal Air Force and trained in the United States. He flew the Spitfire over England and Italy, the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Tom Hennessy turned 100 on May 31.

To celebrate, he is walking 100 miles to raise $100k to support homeless veterans. “We’ve got to do something about it.”

Tom Hennessy's Walk of Gratitude
gofundme.com/f/tom-hennessy…

The Canadians. #DDay A Company, The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment

🎥: Sergeant Bill Grant

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Canada declared war.

And then declared him an enemy. He was a Canadian hero of the First World War and a descendant of samurai.

Do you know about Masumi Mitsui? Born in Japan, he immigrated to Canada in 1908. At the call for war, he went to sign up.

When the recruiters in Vancouver turned him away because of Canada’s racism, he traveled 650 miles to Calgary where they accepted him.

650 miles to fight in the face of their racism.

They were the tip of the spear at D-Day. Operation Market Garden. The Battle of the Bulge. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan.

But the most deadly moment in the Screaming Eagles' storied history was a December morning in a small town in Canada. 1985. 12 days before Christmas Eve.

American soldiers in Egypt finish their tour. A plane is waiting to carry some of them home.

Some soldiers give their tickets to those with spouses and children. They want them to get them home early.

It's a long weekend back in Canada.

Some of us are spending it delivering supplies for Ukrainians as they still defend their home.

Please don’t forget Ukrainians.🇺🇦 Some of us are watching and analyzing as the Kremlin keeps on Kremlining.

https://twitter.com/CanadianForces/status/1527376007182725130?s=20&t=XlLDadA_DMmlu5jKVEz9Zw

At 19, he turned down the Chicago Blackhawks to hitchhike 90 miles and enlist to fight the Nazis.

He rarely saw planes as a kid in Saskatchewan, but wanted to fly. 373 combat missions. 19 confirmed aerial victories.

Wing Commander James F. Edwards has died.

Blue skies, Stocky. In 1940, the same year the NHL came calling, his grandparents were killed by the Luftwaffe during a bombing raid in London.

Nothing was going to keep him from those wings.

They wanted to kill her language and culture. They told her she couldn’t vote. They said she couldn’t be a nurse.

But Edith Anderson persisted. Born to a Mohawk family in Ohsweken in Six Nations of the Grand River, Edith attended day school on the reserve.

At these places across Canada, they told Indigenous children their languages were unwelcome, their cultures inferior.

The places Canada called schools.

A Canadian goes to a museum in Washington, DC, and notices an American’s crushed cap.

What does he do?

Writes a song about hockey, obviously. During the Second World War, some pilots wore peak caps under their headsets. Some removed the inner wiring.

Maybe to make it more comfortable. Maybe to make them seem more experienced.

Maybe they thought it looked cool.

The Flower. Le Démon Blond.

Thank you, Guy Lafleur.

Rest easy. When our @CFSnowbirds offered him a ride, he declined. They weren't fast enough for his liking.

"I thanked the Snowbirds for their offer but told them that I'd had my thrill in an F-18."

(via @Dave_Stubbs)

It's a long weekend. Some of us are spending it deploying to Poland to help Ukrainians forced from their homes by Russia's invasion.

We can’t stop thinking about our Ukrainian friends. Some of us are spending it with our friends in Latvia, the Baltic Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.

After D-Day, he lost sight in an eye in a fight with Nazis. Sporting a patch, he captured 93 enemy troops.

77 years ago today, he tore into a Dutch town, firing his gun and tossing grenades to make the Nazis think they were surrounded.

Léo Major, the sole liberator of Zwolle. *checks notes*

April 9, 1917.

Sitting atop this ridge, an enemy fortress had claimed over 100,000 French soldiers. They storm uphill.

Who were they? They planned meticulously. They gathered information about the enemy positions.

They dug kilometers of tunnels under the battlefield. They built roads, laid cables, hauled supplies.

Logistics matters.