Dad never talked about the war, but a vet who served with him helped me fill in the blanks

first person

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Sometimes life gives you a second chance.

My father, a veteran of the Second World War, died suddenly at age 64. Had I asked him about his war experiences as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy? No. And if I had, would he, like most vets, have been reluctant to talk about them? Had he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder? Probably. I remember my dad as a gentle soul who loved to write, paint, sing, play the piano and fish in the summertime.

In 2020, I wrote Archives Canada to request his war records. Four years later, an e-mail arrived − a PDF of 700 pages of scanned paperwork and the directive to review it in one week as it would