After a 33-year military career, a retired Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will, with great emotion, lay a wreath for the first time at the Remembrance Day ceremony on November 11.
Each year, this duty of remembrance is extremely important for all veterans.
“For the first time, I’m going to be able to. There were several steps to take. Digesting my retirement, my last Remembrance Day in uniform, my first Remembrance Day in civilian clothes. I feel ready,” explains Julie Grandmaison.
The 51-year-old ex-warrant officer feels like he is grieving and losing a family. Enlisted at the age of 17, it’s not just a chapter that turns, but an entire life to relearn. Impossible to go back to the teenager she was back then.
Losing a family
“It’s a great career, but it’s really a loss. It’s like losing a family. Before the army, what was my life like? I don’t know. I am in the process of becoming the new 2.0 version of myself!” adds the woman who is president of the board of directors of the Valcartier Military Family Resource Center.
DIDIER DEBUSSCHERE/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
From her early twenties, Julie experienced three missions and several transfers across the country. Croatia and Bosnia twice, but not Afghanistan by family decision, the father of his son being also a soldier.
“It’s difficult to come back from a mission, to catch up with the spinning wheel. I have lost friends on missions and to suicide. It’s them that I’ll think about. Some don’t come back, but others don’t come back psychologically. For my part, it’s an eternal battle. I’m still being followed but things are going well. I can say it’s the final sprint.”
Although people’s level of recognition has increased, a simple thank you is not yet automatic. Soldiers carry a baggage of trauma for the rest of their lives and the suitcase is often very heavy.
Photo provided by Julie Grandmaison / FAC
Change the culture
“We are all affected. It’s the only link that brings us back together. Almost all of us go to Remembrance Day. Life is beautiful and it doesn’t have to stop there,” she says with a burst of optimism.
Julie Grandmaison is particularly touched by the role of women in the Forces. Upon her arrival, the 1990s marked a major change for the recruitment and integration of women in the infantry and elsewhere. Access to all military positions was opened to women in 1989, with the exception of service on submarines.
In 2024, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Jennie Carignan as Chief of the Defense Staff. Lieutenant General Carignan is the first woman in the country’s history to lead the FAC. The chief of staff has her work cut out for her, particularly with regard to transforming the culture within the staff.
“It’s time for the culture to change. It should have been done before. We have to stop living in a world of unicorns.
“The machine is big to change and it will take a generation,” she believes.
Well aware of the horrors of war, Julie has been hosting a young 13-year-old Ukrainian hockey player for several months. “I give back.”
Two main Remembrance Day ceremonies, November 11, in the Quebec region
- Upper Town of Quebec
Cenotaph of the Cross of Sacrifice
Ceremony begins at 10:45 a.m. - Valcartier military base
Base Valcartier Cenotaph
Ceremony begins at 10:45 a.m.
*Both ceremonies will include a tribute from the air with a low-altitude military helicopter flyby around 11 a.m.
