COBALT - Another Quilt of Valour has been presented locally, this time to Cobalt resident Don Mercier.
The quilt was presented May 27 by Marg Harrison, a local authorized representative of Quilts of Valour. Mercier was greeted by many family members at the surprise presentation.
Mercier related in an interview that he was a member of a tank crew based in Gagetown, New Brunswick, a training base, for three years. He was about to be sent to Cyprus aboard the HMS Bonaventure, but at the last moment he was sent home instead.
Before enlisting he had been a member of the Algonquin Regiment Reserve in Haileybury.
"I decided halfway through Grade 10 to join the military, and they asked me what I wanted, and I said armoured corps because the Algonquins at that time were armoured corps. They shipped me to North Bay and I wrote the exam." He was then sent by train to Toronto where he was sworn in. He was able to return home briefly with some money. A week later he began receiving his basic training at Camp Borden.
"Then off to Gagetown," he said. "Three years in Gagetown. That was it."
The Gagetown base was just starting at that time, he said.
"There were still farms there."
He related that there were many apple trees in the area and at times the crew would stop their tank and someone would climb one of the trees and pick some apples for the tank crew.
He was in line to be sent overseas to Cyprus, but as a spare he had to get off the ship and help drive scout cars and equipment to the ship in Halifax.
Once the ship was loaded, he was told he was being sent home.
Darlene Wroe is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with the Temiskaming Speaker, LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.
