Editor, The News:
Re: Juno Beach is sacred ground (Letters, Nov. 4).
While I respect William Jost’s view of Juno Beach, I couldn’t disagree more.
There are a great many memorials to the fallen situated in both France and Belgium, and there is a museum devoted to the battle which occurred on Juno Beach.
While this was certainly a significant event in Canadian military history, where does it all end?
My father was a prisoner of the Japanese and his life and early death can be easily attributed to his experience. Yet, as far as I know, there are no memorials to his many comrades in that part of the world. Auschwitz is kept as a reminder of the horrors of war, of megalomania and of man’s inhumanity to man and that is as it should be.
The Americans choose to alter history so that the Second World War began in 1942, ignoring the contribution made by Britain and allies from 1939 on. Perhaps that’s because the British and Europeans refuse to glorify it. They simply did what they had to do.
So let people treat Juno as ‘just another beach’. Let them walk on it, yes, and dogs too. This freedom is what our soldiers fought and died for. Don’t sully their memory by making it exclusive.
Anne Rostvig
Maple Ridge