At 100 years old, Lt.-Cmdr. Robert Watkins still remembers the exact moment he decided he would join the military and fight for his country in the Second World War.

“I was walking down Portage Avenue after the war was declared, and a guy from the First World War just stopped me and said, ‘When you’re old enough, are you going to join up?’ Watkins said.

“And I said. 'I'm 14.' I said if the war is still going on I would.”

After that conversation, Watkins briefly considered joining the air force, because he says there was a need for fighter pilots at the time.

He said that changed one day later when he was walking by Winnipeg’s naval reserve headquarters, and was drawn in by the music he heard that day.

“I was walking down Ellice Avenue towards Sherbrook, that’s where the naval barrack

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