A Request from Teacher Rick Boon to Accompany his Father to Liberation Ceremony

[observor 69]

From todays Toronto Sun:

Vet and his son are off to the Netherlands

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/05/01/vet-and-his-son-are-off-to-the-netherlands

 

[mariomike]

Vet and his son are off to the Netherlands

Grandson as well.

"World War Two veteran Art Boon, his son Rick Boon, and grandson Cpl. Jamie Boon are ready to fly to the Netherlands as they walk to the departure gate at Toronto Pearson International Airport"

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I've read that in more than one place, but like media coverage of some labour-management issues, I wonder if there's more that's been left unsaid.

Sure sounds like that to me...........

 

[Loachman]

http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/2015/05/01/last-minute-decision-means-veteran-art-boon-could-have-his-son-along-on-commemoration-trip-to-netherlands

After a national uproar, a Stratford veteran’s son gets to accompany his father to milestone anniversary overseas

By Laura Cudworth, The Beacon Herald

Saturday, May 2, 2015 12:24:06 EDT AM 


STRATFORD - When Art Boon got the message the Second World War had ended he was in a German barnyard drinking warm unpasteurized milk.

He was happy to have it, but he made sure to have a proper drink the next day when he was moved out to Oldenburg.

When he arrives in The Netherlands on Saturday he won't have to settle for warm milk. The drink he has 70 years later will, no doubt, taste just as wonderful as the one he had the day after VE Day. When he raises a glass this time to mark the end of the war he will do it with his son Rick and grandson Jamie.

It has been a long road to get here.

Teacher Rick Boon had applied for unpaid leave to act as a caregiver for his father on the trip but that request was denied by the Avon Maitland District School Board, in part because he had been granted leave for trips like this in the past.

Despite a letter-writing campaign and petition started by renowned musician Loreena McKennitt, strong political intervention and public rallies, the board stuck to its guns. Then just hours before Boon was scheduled to fly out Friday, the board made an announcement.

At about noon, director of education Ted Doherty sent out a statement saying Rick Boon would not be directed to attend work next week. Rick Boon filed for a personal leave of absence under the Employment Standards Act which Doherty said he saw for the first time late in the day Thursday. As a result, there was no time for a fair hearing into the matter.

"If Mr. Boon chooses to go to The Netherlands, we will sort out the legalities following his return. It should be clearly understood that Mr. (Rick) Boon will not face any disciplinary action from the board," Doherty said.

Early Friday afternoon, Art Boon was trying to pack a suitcase as his phone continued to ring, much as it had this past week.

The best call he got was the one telling him Rick could go with him.

"It was a lot of relief," he said. "I was happy to hear that finally we can go and do what we planned in the first place. It's the company and the medical part I need. It's like losing your right hand."

Before Rick started travelling with him, his wife was his travelling companion but she's no longer able to travel.

For her part McKennitt was delighted to hear Rick Boon is able to go.

"I'm deeply grateful this result has come about," she said.

She extended her gratitude toward the general public, students, politicians and some inside the school board. She is still interested in pursuing a social covenant between the people of Canada and the men and women who have served, are serving still, and their families.

For Art Boon, this trip to The Netherlands will be about a lot more than raising a glass, of course. There will be parades and ceremonies and visits to cemeteries hosted by a welcoming and grateful Dutch government and people.

"I presume this will likely be the last large one they do. Five years from now everyone will be 95 to 100 years old," he said.

When Boon goes into the cemeteries, the trip becomes a very personal experience.

"Going into those cemeteries is very tough," he said.

It took 50 years, but in one of the Dutch cemeteries he finally found one of his Hamlet Public School chums, Harold Hilderley.

"It's a sad thing when you finally locate someone and you find them between two friends," he said.

"It's tougher to go to ceremonies than it used to be, too. That's just getting older."

That well-deserved drink he finally got the day after the war ended was a quiet one.

"We were exhausted by that time. No one was jumping around celebrating."

Boon is 90, his jumping around days are behind him. But the warm Dutch gratitude he experienced 70 years ago, he knows he'll experience again and again. It comes not only from the population that experienced the horrors of the war but also their children. Each time he has gone back he's made lasting friendships with families there and he plans to make time for them, too.

laura.cudworth@sunmedia.ca

 

[Loachman]

http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/2015/05/01/will-vet-get-wish-granted-last-minute

Sun gets action: Veteran's wish granted

By Joe Warmington, Toronto Sun

Friday, May 1, 2015 10:11:22 EDT PM

STRATFORD  - In this war of words, feelings were the only that got hurt.

The country was not as fortunate back in World War Two.

In the end, the Avon Maitland District School board caved to the pressure — long after there was time to save face but just in time to allow one of their teachers to travel with his 90-year-old Second World War veteran father to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands.

Tank gunner Art Boon and his 57-year-old son Rick, should not have been pushed to the brink like that. It is good that it is over but what happened here should be addressed.

A lot of people were pushed to the limit and it was unnecessary.

"Oh well," said Art Boon moments after hearing the board has reversed its stance and would allow his son to take leave so the he could get on the Friday flight to Europe. "Lots of baseball games are won in the ninth inning."

This one was pulled out with two outs in the ninth inning and two strikes on the batter, too.

It seems there was a loophole found in the filing of the paperwork but no one is fully explaining it. The real reason is that the public wouldn’t accept it because it appeared to be mean spirited.

But the fighting is over.

"It wasn’t necessary," said Art Boon of the controversy. "This should have been settled a long time ago."

Instead, just six hours before they were set to motor the two-hour drive to Pearson International, word came of the dogged and determined board’s retreat.

"I am thrilled because I really am most comfortable with Rick with me," said the veteran of both the battle for the Netherlands and the storming of Juno Beach on D-Day.

Art Boon teased it may have been just as hard to win this battle.

But then he gets serious. He knows they don’t compare.

"We lost 7,000 men that went and a lot more over the course of the whole war," he said. "They all sacrificed so that any of us can have this life."

One of the lost was almost Art Boon, himself.

A bullet killed a man named John Owen Gibbons that under regular circumstances could have hit Boon.

"He was older than me so it was rare for him to be out of the tank first or before me," Boon recalled of the Owen Sound-area native. "I was usually the first one out."

It was different on Feb. 8, 1945.

"For some reason, he was the first one out and as soon as he was he was hit," said Boon. "He was hit with a sniper's shot. He was essentially killed right there but he died two days later on Feb. 10. I was devastated. I was very close to him."

When he and Rick get to Groesbeek Cemetery in the Netherlands, he will going to Grave XV. G. 14 where John is buried.

"I think about him all the time," Boon said. "It should have been me. I have thought about that a lot over the years and it bothered me lot up until a few years ago when I realized it's fate, I guess."

There are many other soldiers, airmen and sailors with similar stories of sacrifice.

But for Boon to have to deal with this week's red tape sideshow was unfair.

"I did find it stressful and I could have done without it," said the veteran. "I hope it never happens again to another veteran."

Durham MP and Veteran's Affairs minister Erin O’Toole, himself a veteran who was an RCAF helicopter pilot, guaranteed that he will do everything he can to ensure that it doesn't. He, as well as other cabinet ministers in the Harper government, were working behind the scenes to right the bureaucratic wrong that had transpired this week.

"I had spoken to Mr. Doherty earlier in the week and I had urged reconsideration and for everybody to not trip over the rules," O'Toole said. "It came late but I am glad there is a way to make this happen and Art and his son Rick will be able to share this special liberation celebration with the Dutch people."

O'Toole also telephoned Art Boon upon hearing the news.

"I have heard from so many people just how much you are respected and not just because you are a veteran but because you are a veteran who serves and helps other veterans," said O'Toole.

Boon said veterans of all Canadian wars are just that. It doesn't matter the time or the conflict. If you serve, you serve.

"I was over in a cemetery in France in 2010 when I met I got to talk for about 10 minutes with Prime Minister Harper and that is what we talked about," said Boon. "He has so much respect for those who serve."

Boon wanted O'Toole to pass along thanks to the prime minister in which he had a message.

But he may be able to tell him face to face.

"I am going to arrange for some time for you to meet again," said O'Toole. "I will see you and Rick in Holland in a day or so."

It's something that just didn’t look possible earlier Friday.

But the efforts of a lot of people, including singer Loreena McKennitt, an honorary colonel in the RCAF and a Stratford resident, paid off.

"I am deeply grateful that through the combined efforts of so many, including those within the Avon Maitland School Board, we are now able to enjoy the fruits of these efforts, in seeing Mr. Rick Boon accompany his father to the celebrations in the Netherlands," McKennitt said. "I know I am not alone in being so touched by the many Canadians and people beyond, whom I’ve never met, and who have shown their unwavering support for the Boon family."

She added she does "not wish to frame this journey we have taken together as one of winning or losing, but rather of being on a path of learning together. It has afforded us all the opportunity to be solders of democracy."

 

[Loachman]

http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/2015/05/08/stratford-veteran-art-boon-will-participate-in-three-mile-parade-in-apeldoorn-saturday-to-mark-liberation-of-the-netherlands

NETHERLANDS LIBERATION: Happy to return to Holland with his son, Second World War veteran Art Boon of Stratford was greeted by a 100-year-old woman he hadn’t seen since 1945

Stratford Veteran Art Boon will participate in three-mile parade in Apeldoorn to mark liberation of The Netherlands

By Laura Cudworth, The Beacon Herald

Friday, May 8, 2015 8:13:46 EDT PM

Seventy years ago, veteran Art Boon was one of thousands of Canadian soldiers fighting to liberate the Netherlands from the Nazis.

This week, Boon stood in the Hotel de Wereld on the same spot where the German high command formally surrendered to the Canadians on May 5, 1945, two days before Germany's unconditional surrender ended the Second World War in Europe.

"I was just standing right by it. I had never been over there before," Boon said by phone from the Netherlands of the hotel in Wageningen, a Dutch city where the surrender to Canada took place.

What Boon saw of the tiny country as a young soldier, he saw from inside a tank.

But Tuesday, the 90-year-old travelled two hours in the back of a cab arranged by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get to the hotel in Wageningen. Boon and the prime minister shook hands in the lobby and spoke for about 15 minutes.

"I covered more land in a day than in a month during wartime," said Boon, a decorated veteran who fought his way through Europe with Canadian forces.

Invited by the Dutch government to help celebrate the 70th anniversary of its liberation, Boon made international headlines just trying to get there.

The Stratford-area school board that employs his son, Rick Boon, wouldn't grant the teacher's request for unpaid leave to accompany his father to Holland, leading to huge public outcry.

In the end, the son took Boon overseas, anyway, filing a request for personal leave under Ontario's labour law. The Avon Maitland District school board said it would sort out the legalities afterward.

The trip was Art Boon's second time meeting Harper. The first was by chance at a Canadian war cemetery in France.

It's been an eventful week for Boon and the small number of other Canadian veterans who were able to return to the Netherlands, a country that was on its knees and starving after a five-year occupation until the Canadians and other Allies showed up.

The largest 70th-anniversary liberation event will be a 5-km parade in Apeldoorn Saturday, with about 300,000 Dutch citizens expected to attend.

"It will be a big one. In ’95, the city is normally 100,000, but it was 300,000," Boon said, recalling the 50th anniversary celebration. "They had to close down the roads. It will be the same again (Saturday). They’ll be from all over the country and all over Canada."

Besides his son, Boon was accompanied overseas by his grandson, Jamie.

While the lead-up to the trip was tough, with the school board relenting only hours before their departure, Rick Boon said the journey has been gratifying.

"It’s been one of those experiences I wouldn’t have wanted to miss with my father."

With this year's ceremony expected to be the last big milestone anniversary for many of the vets, whose average age is 95, it appeared the Dutch were making an even bigger effort this year to honour them.

"In five years, there won’t be all that many here," Art Boon said.

A highlight for the Boon family was the chance to meet up with old friends.

A 100-year-old woman Art Boon hadn’t seen since 1945 came out in her wheelchair to celebrate.

"It was a thrill to talk to her again," Boon said.

The Boons fly home Sunday.