Community connects in awareness, healing, momentum
14 Wing Greenwood’s Defence Indigenous Advisory Group marked National Day for Truth and Reconciliation September 30 with a community-focused flag-raising, awareness walk, and insight from organizers, wing leadership and special speakers.
Lieutenant Melanie Rustenburg shared a poem she wrote as part of her understanding of her mother’s experience in a residential school, and how “life had a lot of challenges.
“I’m her daughter, the daughter of a mother who went to residential school,” Rustenburg said, emotional before even beginning. “I wrote this this year, in my healing journey.”
In her poem, she described a conversation between herself as a 15-year-old girl and as she is today.
“‘She always loved us as best she could,’” she tells her younger self about their mother. And that, yes, “‘life is definitely worth living.’”
She thanked the several hundred people who attended the event, including her 14 Wing peers, for being a part of truth and reconciliation, “giving space to speak our truth, surrounded by people who allow us to do that.
“It makes my heart warm.”
Wing commander Colonel Luc Vachon said September 30 is a day of recognition, “when we pause to reflect on the past, commit ourselves to learn and think of the future.
“Canadians are known for compassion. As a Defence Team, we are sworn to protect, and we can’t look away from the impact of things that are wrong on people. Reconciliation is part of the Canadian Armed Forces – but it is just the beginning. We all have a role to play in maintaining the momentum.”
The orange and white Every Child Matters awareness flag was raised above 26 Canadian Forces Health Services, and the crowd of military members in uniform, families and community friends in orange and logoed shirts gathered to walk behind the Mi’kmaw Grand Council flag along a short route, taking them over a symbolic painted crosswalk the DIAG completed several years ago near 14 Wing headquarters. It includes a feather design, children’s hand and foot prints, and a red ribbon remembering missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Back at 26 CFHS, orange T-shirt iced cookies prepared by base cooks were shared, as guest Annapolis Valley First Nation youth dancers shared their skills and Rustenburg offered a smudge to anyone who wished to join her.
Photos: Corporal L. Brolly, 14 Wing Imaging
