Gore Bay resident William Robert (Bud) Dearing reflected on his three years in the Canadian Army, which included completing the Nijmegen Four-Day Marches in the Netherlands and serving on the honour guard at Vimy Ridge.
GORE BAY—“When I tell people that when I was in the services, I took part in an event where I walked 40 kilometres a day for four days in full uniform, they always have a hard time believing me,” stated William Robert (Bud) Dearing of Gore Bay. While he was in the military, he took part in the International Four-Day Marches Nijmegen, earning a medal for completing the four day-competition.
The International Four-Day Marches Niijmegen is the largest and oldest military sporting event in the world, with tens of thousands of participants from across the world’s militaries taking part. It is organized every year in Niijmegen, Netherlands in mid-July as a means of promoting support, exercise, and a display of military professionalism. Military competitors will pack march 40 kilometres in uniform carrying at least 10 kilograms of dead weight. Conversely civilian participants, who can march although not compete, walk 30 km (19 miles), 40 km (25 miles) or 50 km (31 miles) daily, depending on their age and gender. Successful competitors on completion, receive a royally approved medal (Vierdaagsekruis). Although the event is now demographically predominantly civilian, it is still inherently and culturally a military event.
Mr. Dearing, who was in the services from September 1961-September 1964, explained, “I took part in the Marches Jiijmegen in 1964. The medal I received for taking part in the March was lost about 50 years ago, one of our kids had taken it to school for show and tell. This summer I reordered the medal, at the office in Niijmegen, and they sent me a new one.”
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