The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

stouffme suntribune thursday june 5 2003 21 n 3 embe ce tor 1 i ksstudenfs un nefjurgetting by mitchell brown staff writer y h i hey visited me louvre j travelledtb the top of the jl eiffel tower toured a cheese factory arid stopped by me french village where joari of arc met her fate in 1431 but for the 32 students from newmarkets dr john m deriison secondary school and 12 students from langstaff secondary school in richrriond hill the most moving part of their school trip to france was definitely the afternoon they spent on juno beach v it was kind of weird to think about what happened and to just be standing there said laurah cerilli a grade 11 student at john mdenison we have our remembrance day ceremonies but its so far back its getting hard for them to get it after our generation when all the veterans are dead who do we have to tell the stories it was also neat to experience something youve already learned in history class june 6 1944 more than 21000 canadian soldiers landed on juno beach an eightkilometre stretch of beach on frances northern shore as part of the allied cam- paign to wrest the european conti nent from nazi control staff photosusie kockerscheidt the york regional police pipe arid drum band led members of the sutton legion and their comrades from pennsylvania during the annu al dday parade to briar hill cemetery in suttori last sunday a cere mony was held at the memorial to commemorate the invasion of europe on june 6 1944 on that day canadian forces stormed juno beach establishing a bridgehead for me reinforcements that followed the evenirig prior to the parade and service lighted candles were placed on the graves of veteransburied at briar j that project- which was initi ated locally by second world war veteran sam doggart of georgina is spreading throughout york region three hundred and forty sbl- diers died that day another 574 were wounded and 473 taken pris oner it hasbeen 59 years since our soldiers landed on that rocky shore- lirie and students were a little sur prised to find the beach itself just a few kilometres away from the beach made famous in the film saving private ryan showed little evidence of what happened that day just knowing people were shot down there and died right on the spot where youre standing its just kind of hard to picture amarida mcgowan a grade 10 student at john m denison said ats6me parts it looks like nothing bad had ever happened there and theres no evidence of war or killing but there are remnants of old bunkers and chunks of concrete still litter me landscape the ceme tery containing the remains of the soldiers who died in battle that day is just a short distance from the beach unlike theamerican cemetery where au the headstones are in the shape of a cross and contain little more than the soldiers names the canadian cemetery features head stones carved with a single maple leaf and verses chosen by families backhome when youre going through just reading those inscriptions i think there werent very many peo ple that didnt shed at least one tear said summer harris one of the teacher chaperoriespn the trip on the april day the students visited the cemetery few other visi tors were there allowing students time to read inscriptions and real- ize many of the soliders who died v werent much older than they are you hear numbers in history class but when you actually see them youre just like whoa ms mcgowan said you never imagined it was this many it actually looks like so many people when you see the crosses rowbnrow prenrier ernie eves will be among dignitaries in cpurselles- surmer france who will take part in the official opening of the juno beach centre tomorrow a 10-mil- libri museum commemorating the d day landing and the contribu tions of canadians on the home front juno centre long overdue from page 1 the 15000squarefoot juno beach centre was built with dona tions from royal canadian legions across canada as well as proviricial and federal funding it also houses a museum the stouffville legion and markharri veterans associations as well as the town of whitchurch- stbuffville purchased comrnemo- rative bricks for the centre the veterans association arid its meiribers raised funds in partner ship with walmart which sold bricks for the centre the centre is long overdue said mr dawe it is very essential that we should keep to the front the very fact that our boys served in that terrible war j i 1 walmart customers and all canadians for your support 1 m wmmm1 m