Op-ed: War – what is it good for?

I was asked to have a look at what Alexander (Sandy) McGillivray had to say about World War I in his massive tome, The Little Current Story. He wrote of the campaigns that came to the Island in 1915 and 1916, to build up numbers of recruits. Lt. Colonel Jones, from Sault-Ste-Marie, worked tirelessly to get men to enlist. There were periodic recruiting meetings featuring bands and military as well as civilian speakers. Returned soldiers talked of life in the trenches while others spoke of the dire consequences to Canada if the ‘Central Powers’ should win. Women in the audience were reminded of the reported German atrocities in Belgium and the possibility of such things happening in Canada. And they were admonished not to stand in the way of their menfolk, but to encourage them to sign up.

“Despite its best efforts, D company was not up to strength,” Mr. McGillivray reported in his book. Rather than the hoped for 200 men, D company came away with only 100 recruits. Lt. Col. Jones grew impatient and wrote an open letter to the mothers in the Expositor. This I had to see, and I turned to the microfiche issues of the Manitoulin Expositor in the NEMI Public Library.