It is Remembrance Day, and we are asked to give a few minutes of our day to remember those who gave their lives. 

Teresa Mistelbacher’s husband, Lee, is a Master Corporal with the Canadian Armed Forces. 

She says it is important that we never forget those who gave their lives for freedom and peace. 

“Each of those service members had a family and people who cared about them, and they made a lot of sacrifices in order to accomplish, whether it was preserving someone else's freedom or our own, or just really a lot of courage and bravery to step up into the line of duty. And I think that the least we can do is show up for a ceremony once a year and just take a moment to be grateful for that. I think that's really powerful.” 

Mistelbacher sees Remembrance Day in a different light now, even though she grew up understanding the reason for this annual day of honouring those who served and never returned home. 

“I really developed a more personal connection to Remembrance (Day) because of my partner's career and some of the experiences that he's had as a service member,” she says. “And so, it's become something that we share with our children now too; the importance of coming and showing our thanks and our respect for the service of today's force members and those of past as well.” 

It isn’t always easy to be the spouse of someone serving in the armed forces, but Mistelbacher says that even with the dangers of the job and relocating every few years for her husband’s career, she finds it easy to support his career choice. 

“When I see the passion my husband has for his career, it makes it really easy to support him,” she says. “And I also recognize the important work that he does. And so, knowing that his work directly contributes towards, you know, whether that's helping make a flight safer or helping to bring the aircraft somewhere it needs to be to help others in need. It feels really good to be able to support him in achieving that.” 

After a few years of moving around the country, Mistelbacher says it feels great to now be settling back to life in Manitoba, surrounded by family and friends. 

She notes the military offers a lot of support with building community connections when families relocate, but there is no place like home.

From www.steinbachlegion.ca 

Honour Roll of local service personnel:

  • World War I
    • Peter Wiebe Friesen
    • John Gorrie
    • Thomas Alfred Hasted
  • World War II
    • George Barkman
    • George Barthelette
    • Ronald Campbell
    • Harold Evans
    • Louis Fabas
    • Frank Giesbrecht
    • David Hiebert
    • Jacob Klippenstein
    • Emilien Lamontagne
    • George Morand
    • Henry Rodgers
    • Arthur Rodrigue
    • Henry Schmidke
    • Marcel Sinclair
    • Henry Wiebe
    • Peter Wiebe
    • Michael Wintoniw

When you go home
Tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.

 

-With files from Carly Koop

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