Crystal Beach veteran shares what Remembrance Day means to him

It’s difficult to find a person who fought in Afghanistan “who doesn’t know someone who was killed over there.”

This was something Fort Erie Radio was told in a recent interview with Arthur Ramier, a 42-year-old Crystal Beach resident who served in the war for more than four months in 2010.

He joined the Royal Canadian Regiment at age 24 and was deployed to Afghanistan a short time after.

He was part of a provincial reconstruction team that moved over to a “battle group” responsible for combat operations, presence patrols, and clearing explosives from roadways and urban areas.

“If you find them, you call the engineers and they come and take care of them,” he explained.

He spends his time now working as a bartender at Breakwall Brewery in Port Colborne, as well as at Skydive Burnaby in Wainfleet.

For him, Remembrance Day is an occasion to acknowledge the sacrifice made by men and women in the military who didn’t make it home, along with those who suffered life-altering injuries.

“For a lot of people, it’s a good time to sit down and think about those folks, as well as the abundance that have been lost since then due to suicide,” said Ramier.

While he is thankful for the men and women who served in conflicts like the First World War and Second World War, he said there appears to be a growing understanding of veterans close to his age.

There was “no shortage of sacrifice” from those historic wars, but “a lot of people realize what went on after that,” he said, referring to more recent wars.

Ramier has been home for about 14 years, but that doesn’t mean what he experienced in Afghanistan is behind him.

“I don’t think any days go by when you don’t think about what you saw over there,” he said, adding that the most aggressive combat occurred between 2003 and 2008.

Asked if he saw some of that brutality, he responded with a slight nod of his head.

In his early 20s when he decided to join the military, Ramier said it “seemed like a good career at the time,” wanting to “make a little bit of a difference, do something bigger than yourself.”

Ramier says he still gets together with his colleagues from his infantry, but “more than anything, it’s just fun stories” they share when in the company of each other.

There are three Remembrance Day ceremonies planned in Greater Fort Erie on Monday.

Royal Canadian Legion Branch 230 will host one at the cenotaph on Farr Avenue in Ridgeway at 11 a.m., and another at 2 p.m. at Stevensville Memorial Hall.

Branch 71 will host a ceremony at 11 a.m. at the cenotaph located at Mather Arch.

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