When every day is Remembrance Day

The National Field of Honour cemetery’s assistant manager fears veterans’ sacrifices no longer resonate with younger generations.

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The sky is an appropriate glum grey. The season’s first snowfall has covered the grave markers of the 16,000 war veterans and their spouses buried in the National Field of Honour cemetery in Pointe-Claire.

With his ungloved hands, Lech Kwasiborski, the cemetery’s assistant manager, is gingerly removing snow — more like sludge — from the markers of the graves of his Second World War veteran father, his mother and those of other vets. He is hopeful the snow will be gone for Saturday’s Remembrance Day ceremonies around the cemetery’s Currie Circle monument.

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“Apart from providing dignified funerals for veterans, what I like best about my job is being able to say good morning to my parents every day,” says Kwasiborski, born and raised in Côte-des-Neiges. “Along with my wife and two daughters, my parents were the only family I had here.”

Kwasiborski — his buddies call him Boris — is trying to remain upbeat while strolling through the 93-year-old cemetery, but the harsh reality is that almost every day is a Remembrance Day for him. So many memories, so many horrific stories of war, all the while being surrounded by thousands of graves of veterans.

While still in high school, Kwasiborski joined the Royal Montreal Regiment army reserves in 1970 at the age of 16. After finishing high school, he became a full-time soldier at 18 when legally entitled to do so. He went on to do training stints in Jamaica and Germany before serving with the Canadian peacekeeping forces in Egypt in 1974. These were politically volatile times following the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East. Tensions were still running high in the region.

Yet what has haunted Kwasiborski for nearly 50 years is what didn’t happen to him but what could have in August, 1974.

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Fate intervened.

Kwasiborski sought a weekend furlough and was assigned a seat on a round-trip flight from Ismailia in Egypt, where he was stationed, to Beirut, and back again. But he got bumped off the flight just a day before departure to make room for his future commanding officer. During the flight’s return trip, on which Kwasiborski would have been a passenger, the transport aircraft was shot down mid-air by surface-to-air missiles launched from Syria over which the plane had been flying.

All nine Canadian Forces soldiers, five crew members and four military passengers aboard UN Flight 51, were killed. It was the single greatest loss in Canada’s peacekeeping history.

Lech Kwasiborski, wearing his military medals, crouches to clear snow off a headstone in a graveyard
Ex-Sgt. Lech Kwasiborski clears the snow from his parents’ grave marker at the National Field of Honour in Pointe-Claire. His father served in the Second World War.   Photo by Dave Sidaway /Montreal Gazette

“My first thought upon hearing the news was: ‘What the f***! I’m glad I wasn’t on that plane,’” Kwasiborski recalls. “That lasted a couple of hours until the darkness set in. Then it really hit me like a ton of bricks. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. How can I not?

“My friend, Sgt. Major Cyril Bogdan Korejwo, was on that flight. We both came from Polish backgrounds. I finally tracked down where he was buried in Ontario and go visit his grave on a yearly basis to pay my respects.”

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After further deployments, Kwasiborski retired from service with the Royal Montreal Regiment in 1986, but he has remained actively involved as a veteran, be it making presentations at high schools, selling poppies and now managing the National Field of Honour cemetery.

“I want to make younger generations aware of what many of their ancestors did in the service of their country, but, sadly, I don’t think most care. We come from a different generation where they barely remember the two World Wars, let alone recent peacekeeping involvements. They want to be happy. I understand. I want to be happy, too. But bad things happen.

“My generation was exposed to survivors of some of the most brutal battles. I became friends with vets stilling bearing scars from being burned with mustard gas and still suffering from post-traumatic stress decades later. I heard their stories. This is all part of my DNA. It’s not part of this younger generation’s DNA.

“Then again, I don’t think our politicians take the military seriously enough. What gets cut first in federal budgets? Defence spending and veterans’ care.”

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There are nearly three dozen different sections in this cemetery, and there are no headstones commemorating the veterans buried here.

“Everyone is an equal here, whether they were generals or foot soldiers,” Kwasiborski is quick to point out. “As it should be.”

Sauntering over to the cemetery’s Columbarium section, where the urns of veterans are interred above ground, Kwasiborski utters a prayer for a longtime buddy, Chester Bednarski, resting there.

Walking over to another section of the cemetery, Kwasiborski runs into retired Black Watch trooper and bagpiper Sylvain Jetty. He is in the midst of solemnly piping over the grave of his close friend François Duperé.

Lech Kwasiborski and piper Sylvain Jetty around a grave with a wreath next to it
Ex-Sgt. Lech Kwasiborski, at the National Field of Honour, with piper Sylvain Jetty, paying homage at the grave of friend, veteran François Duperé. Photo by Dave Sidaway /Montreal Gazette

“What a life François led: three times he was given up for dead while suffering all manner of injuries serving in Afghanistan, then he comes back home and dies after tripping down some stairs while helping a friend in distress,” Jetty notes. “One never knows what life can bring.”

Kwasiborski simply nods and gives Jetty a hug.

Set to turn 70 in January, Kwasiborski, at six-foot-two, cuts an imposing figure. Apart from having to wear hearing aids — as a result of constant exposure to machine-gun fire and shelling — he remains remarkably fit physically.

Back from the cemetery tour, Kwasiborski removes his winter coat, revealing the formal jacket he will be wearing during Remembrance Day ceremonies. On the jacket are 10 medals he has earned. The medal closest to his heart — literally and figuratively — next to a peacekeeping honour, is the Star of Courage, awarded for an act of conspicuous courage in circumstances of great danger.

But this medal didn’t come as a result of his courage on the battlefield. Rather, it was for saving the lives of three people in a fiery car crash in Montreal.

“There is no on-or-off switch when or where it comes to serving others,” Kwasiborski says. “We have to be ready to help at all times.”

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