A Piper Visits France

By SFU student Kevin McLean

It’s easy to think of the hundreds of thousands who gave the ultimate sacrifice during the Great War as simply a large number symbolizing mechanized warfare and the carnage that the war brought. When I first saw a cemetery in France that held the fallen soldiers of the Great War, I was reminded of the massive numbers I read in the history books. The hundreds of markers before me were just part of the masses of dead that seemed so far removed from my life.

But then I found the grave of a very famous Canadian and Victoria Cross recipient—Piper James Cleland Richardson of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. Like me, he was a piper. He was just twenty years old when he died—that would have been me two years ago.

I also found the grave of my great-uncle William McLean who died during the Hundred Day Offensive in 1918. He was thirty-three years old when he died and left behind two very young children and a wife of seven years. Those children would grow up without a father and his wife would continue without a husband.

Because I was probably the first and only person to ever make a point of finding William’s grave, I wanted to do something unique in his honour so I played a piobaireachd—the traditional music of the bagpipes. I played “The Fingerlock,” which was the traditional tune of the McLean clan in Scotland. As I was playing, I realized that most of the other graves around me had probably never been visited individually yet those people too had a unique story about the sacrifice they made and the people they left behind. At that moment the numbers I read in the history books all changed. It was no longer tens of thousands of soldiers who died, but rather tens of thousands of individual Canadians just like me.

SFU piper Kevin McLean plays at James Richardson’s grave in France. Mariane St-Maurice photo, True Patriot Love Foundation

I realized that each of the soldiers who died had a family, friends, liked music or sports or reading, told jokes and was truly proud to call themselves Canadian. They were the young and compassionate teenager who lived across the street or who sat beside you in math class. They were your son, your grandson, your brother, your father. They were the stars of the sports teams, the class clown, the first person to ask you to dance in high school. They had just gotten married to their high school sweetheart. They had two young kids who were barely old enough to walk and they had just been hired to their first real job. They were all individuals.

I now understand that remembering the Great War is not about studying politics or memorizing dates and numbers—it’s about the individuals who gave up everything they had for their country. I often hear that Canada lacks the history of Great Britain or the patriotism of the United States of America, but the individual sacrifices made during the Great War in the name of Canada make me proud to call myself a Canadian. I am proud to be a part of the same country that these individuals knew was special enough to die for.

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