BARRHEAD-Every year the Barrhead Royal Canadian Legion honours the deceased members of Canada’s Armed forces by placing a Canadian flag on their graves.
The Legion also plants flags at the gravesites of 71 veterans buried in 26 County of Barrhead cemeteries.
On the Field of Honour, there are more than 208 veterans alone from all branches of the Canadian Armed Forces (the Army, Royal Canadian Air Force) as well as the merchant navy and Royal Canadian RCMP.
The Anglican Church donated the cemetery in 1925 for the sole purpose of honouring Barrhead’s vets.
"Not a lot of people know that if you are a veteran, you automatically have a grave [in the Field of Honour] free," Herman Barkemeyer said, adding spouses of service people also receive a free grave plot.
The only caveat being is that the person had to be honourably discharged.
Barkemeyer is a 10-year veteran who served in both the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Army with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, including a rotation during the Korean War. He is part of a three-person committee that is in charge of the placing the flags.
Barkemeyer added that many of the features such as the fencing and the trees are the direct result of the returning Second World War veterans who donated not only supplies but their time.
In addition to the flags, the Legion places two wreaths at the front gate.
"In fact, at one time we used to use wreaths instead of flags, but after the winter, they did not hold up so well, so we switched to the flags," he said, adding the tradition of honouring veterans gravesites started in 1989.
The wreaths were the ones from the Remembrance Day ceremonies that had been placed at the War Memorial. They switched to flags about 10 years ago.
Barkemeyer noted that except for the two large Canadian flags at the Legion and Field of Honour they have to buy the flags, which they do through the local dollar stores, using their own coffers.
Barkemeyer admits as time goes on, it gets harder and harder for the committee to plant the flags and said one day they might have to pass the tradition on to another group, but that might be difficult as there is no definitive list where each veteran is buried.
"The committee has created a list and a map of where everyone is buried, but it could be difficult for those who haven't done it before," he said.
The list was created through visual inspection of the tombstones and from being notified by relatives of the deceased.
One of the things that has made creating the list more difficult is that a person's service might not be recognized on the stone, or they may not have a stone at all.
Sometimes, Barkemeyer said when a service person passes away, their family may not be in the financial situation to pay for a stone. The good news, he said, through Canada Veterans Affairs there is a program that helps ensure a veteran has a proper grave marker.
"The Field of Honour is something the community should be very proud of. Not everyone has a separate cemetery for their veterans," Barkemeyer said.
He noted Barrhead's Field of Honour, over the years, has been recognized numerous times by the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command as one of the best in the nation.
"And it is. It is a very well-kept, pretty cemetery," Barkemeyer said.
