Charlie Borden, Sonny Parker and Glenn Willis are three of Nova Scotia's best — honourable, decent men who served their nation well in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Over the span of 30 years, each man joined the army for essentially the same reason — to escape the racism in the towns of their youth. They are among 31 Black Nova Scotian veterans honoured with banners on the streets of one of those towns — Truro, my hometown.
Charlie Borden was 21 years old when — 70 years ago — he jumped aboard a truck that was cruising New Glasgow seeking needed recruits for the Canadian army. Charlie was looking for a way out of the town and its brutal bigotry.
The truck filled, but only two of its passengers passed the test required to enlist. Charlie was one and not long after he found himself in war-ravaged, early-1950s Germany.
Thirty years later, in 1981, Truro native Glenn Willis was just 18. He first joined the reserves and shortly after the army itself. Growing up, he'd been the target of racial slurs and physical attacks.
Glenn spent 32 years in the Forces and was part of peacekeeping missions to some of the most dangerous spots on Earth, including former Yugoslavia, as it was ripped apart by bloody civil war.
In the early 1960s, Sonny Parker — a member of the Maritime Sports Hall of Fame ball team, Vaughn Furriers — was a trained tradesman in his hometown, Halifax. He couldn't get hired and knew why, so he walked to Windsor Park's recruitment office and signed up.
Over his 23-year military career, Sonny served twice in Cyprus when ancient hostilities between Turks and Greeks boiled over, and later he trained hundreds of new recruits back home at Cornwallis.
Three Black Nova Scotian men from three generations — Charlie's now a remarkably young 91, Sonny is 73, and Glenn is 57 — left behind caustic, menacing racism and went to places where they put their lives on the line in service to their nation and to make the world just a little less brutal.
Each man recognizes that, in the Forces, he faced a different kind of racism, mostly covert and systemic. It held Black men back and passed them over for promotion while their white contemporaries climbed the ladder up the ranks with relative ease.
But the systemic racism they endured in the Canadian military was easier to take than the brand they suffered back home. The camaraderie that develops among soldiers who have each other's backs in deadly situations served to ease the man-made divisions that were all too evident in New Glasgow, Truro and Halifax.
And today through Remembrance Day, banners celebrating their service hang alongside 28 others that line the streets of Truro's three historically Black neighbourhoods.
Truro's Nolan Borden, the driving force behind the banner initiative, now in its second year, said the 19 banners that waved last year have become 31 as the community honours living and dead veterans, each with a connection to the town.
Nolan's a retired teacher who believes young people in the community benefit by understanding the service and the sacrifices of their forefathers.
Charlie and Sonny have made Truro their home. Glenn was born and raised there but now only returns for the occasional visit. The memories of youthful years blighted by bigotry are best left behind.
Glenn Willis bears physical wounds and mental scars from the battles of his military career. Sonny Parker struggles with what he calls the “demons” that haunt him still from his time in Cyprus. The army was Charlie Borden's ticket out of New Glasgow and he didn't go back. The three men say, given the choice and the same circumstances, they'd follow the same path into the Forces all over again.
Three soldiers among 31 who served a nation where too often their rights were denied. The character and dignity of the men who endured the racism is undiminished, unlike that of the racists.
Over three decades, from the early 1950s to the 1980s, these three men faced similar, insidious racism in Nova Scotian communities. Four decades later, is there reason to believe it's not still there?
Glenn wears a vest that he calls his Superman's cape. It bears his military insignia and when he has it on he feels respect. White Nova Scotians often thank him for his service. Without it, he says, “I'm just another Black man,” suggesting that the respect he's earned many times over can still disappear as easily as he changes his clothes.
As Remembrance Day approaches, and Canadians prepare to honour veterans a little differently this year, we need to remember all of our veterans, perhaps especially those who served a nation where too many of their fellow citizens dismissed and disrespected them.
