Poppies Enter The Information Age

Jeff Green | Nov 06, 2024

The poppy's that are available just about everywhere in the week's preceding Remembrance Day haven't changed much over the years. It is a red paper flower with a black fabric dot in the middle and a pin that never seems to stay put when affixed to a jacket or a shirt, making it necessary to buy several in order to still have one to pin on a cushion at the end of the Remembrance Day service.

But, appearances can be deceiving.

The pins now have a code embedded in them. By accessing Poppystories.ca on a cell phone, and then following a couple of instructions, it is easy to scan the poppy and bring up a simple web page about a Canadian veteran who lost their life serving our country.

I tried scanning a number of poppy's from the same batch, and they do tend to go to the same story, but the screen can be moved forward to reveal more.

The poppy's from Mike Dean's Local Grocer in Sharbot Lake bring up the story of Keith Bradley Mirau, who grew up in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, along with his two brothers. Keith, who was born in 1944, joined the Canadian Airforce when he was 18. He later married his wife Gloria, and the couple had two children.

He was serving as a co-pilot on United Nations Flight 51, which was downed near the Lebanese-Syrian border in 1974, leading to the death of all who were onboard. It was the largest loss of life in a single peacekeeping incident. Keith was 29 years old. In 2008, the parliament of Canada proclaimed August 9th as National Peacekeepers Day.

The next bio that comes up is Joseph Mario Dominic Benoit Chevalier, who was born in Macamic, Quebec in 1982. He enlisted in the Air Force at the age of 20. He lost his life during a training mission while serving in Egypt. The aircraft expereinced a mechanical failure and resulted in a faal crash, he was 25.

Edwin Erwin Phillips was born in Montreal, the son of Edwin Senior and Rachel Phillips, who emigrated to Canada from the British West Indies. He was born in 1921. He was working as a printers apprentice when WWII broke out and elisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He worked as a mechanic with 168 Heavy Transport Battalion, eventually rising to the rank of Sergeant. He survived the war, but following the end of the war he continued serving, and was on a humanitarian mission accompanying a delivery of penicillin to Poland when his plane crashed into a hilltop near Halle, West Germany. He was 24 when he died.

Finally, Andrew Charles Mynanski was born in Winnipeg, in 1916, the son of Polish immigrants. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941, and joined the “Moose” squadron to fly Lancasters out of RAF Middleton in England in March of 1944. While he and his crew were on their 13th mission, their plane was shot down by enemy fire. For his sacrifice and efforts to save the members of his squadron, he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Remembrance Day Fundraiser

The Frontenac News' Remembrance Day feature is a major fundraiser for the paper. Each of the business card style ads on the three pages of this feature, pages 8-10 his year, generates money for the three legion branches in our readership area: Legion Branch 334 (Arden), Legion Branch 425 (Sharbot Lake) and Legion Branch 496 (Sydenham). For each of the ads on the three pages, a donation of $30 is made to the local legions. The legions also raise money every year with their Poppy campaigns, and the Poppy money is earmarked for services for veterans offered by the branches.

The money raised in our fundraiser is different in that it is left to each branch to decide what to do with it.

All three legion branches offer a number of programs for local vets, and are integral to the social lives of the entire communities as well, though dinners, dances, card games, darts and much, much more. It is a challenge to keep the doors open at the branches, and to be able to help in a small way, thanks to the generosity of our advertisers.

This week, we will be sending $350 to each of the three branches, $30 from each ad with a small topup from the Frontenac News.

We thank our advertisers for supporting this initiative and our readers for making use of the goods and services offered by them.