The secret lives of Legionnaires

Battle stories from the Point

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Downhill from the city, past the ghosts of Griffintown, over the bridge that replaced the tunnel, past the Club Price turn-off and the spot where the Bucket of Blood Tavern once stood, I tote a notepad. On one side I've written "flaws", on the other, "virtues."

Going to the Legion Hall in Point St-Charles, I picture myself flipping the pad frequently, writing on the "flaws" side about war-time wannabes I imagine slumming and laying unreasonable claim to the hard-nose, working-class tradition of the Point. I'd alternate to the "virtues" side whenever I'd note the old-time fighters who exude brotherhood and community, the raconteurs who are the city's unrecognized geniuses.

What I didn't expect was that this cozy house on Ste-Madeleine, full of grey hairs and geriatrics, knows how to party. The secret of the Legion's friendly atmosphere, I'm told, is the even-keeled stewardship of its president for the past 25 years, the ex-infantryman Frank Baddely, known for pinning poppies at Peel and Ste-Catherine as well as his heart-melting tenor version of "Danny Boy."

This aging lifelong Point native suggests I'd get a better story at the much larger Verdun Legion. But when he sees I'm not budging, he credits other members, his VP Bill Key, Frank Monroe, a much-loved war hero who has MC'd the New Year's eve bash for ailing veterans at the Ste-Anne's veterans hospital for an incredible 53 years, Roger Doucet, and a list of others. Baddely, who busily shuttles aging beer-sippers in his minivan, wears his credit, a small medal pinned to his lapel, which he reluctantly admits is the highest award for service.

Back downstairs, retired officers and warriors spin yarns: one tells of meeting his father for the first time at age 10, and seeing a man devastated by his experience as a battlefield medic. Somebody describes how his uncle survived 17 operations on a throat damaged by mustard gas; another describes the magnificent sight of hundreds of returning veterans getting off at the local train station after the war. Somebody keeps deadpanning about being a wartime DBO, as in dick-blown-off.

Sitting quietly among grey hairs, one wouldn't mark Dorothy Perks as having much in common with Hemingway, e.e. cummings or Walt Disney. But they all drove a wartime ambulance. "It was either that or working in the munitions factory," she says, noting that many of her women friends eventually died in workplace ammo accidents. Dusty, as they call her, moved here from Wolverhampton, England in 1957 and loves the Point for being "a place where people help each other."

Although she won't describe the horror of picking up arms and legs of Blitzkrieg victims, she'll tell of narrowly avoiding truck-sized craters while driving full speed on streets blacked-out to avoid overhead detection of Luftwaffe bombers.

Perhaps the ultimate local definition for inner conflict might be a Point native who's sworn to secrecy, a phenomenon I witness when two tippling servicemen fight to resist telling me the secrets they were sworn to keep. Members of the Black Watch--the regiment responsible for the impressive annual Remembrance Day march from Dominion Square to their barracks on Bleury--want to talk about the army's role in the FLQ October Crisis.

"If people knew of the real internal and external threat, yes, I said external threat, that existed at that time, they'd be shocked to find out," one says. Both start telling the secret story, only to be hushed by the other. "Those who served during the October Crisis were never rewarded for their service. In fact, they were looked down upon for it," one of them tells me.

Their tales, like others, fly back and forth between pride and dissatisfaction. "External postings that last over 12 months require the military to pay for your family to come, so those bastards would post you for 11 months and 29 days. You'd have to stay in town if you wanted to keep your family together." But the aging ex-infantryman fails to mention that he has two families, the biological one and this one at the Legion, a family earned by shared toil in mud, discipline and heavy weaponry.

As I leave, the "flaws" side of my pad remains untouched.

Main: Legion hopping

Sidebar: Bingo battles and a shot of Bailey's in Verdun

Sidebar #2: The secret lives of Legionnaires

Sidebar #3: An encounter with Popeye, the downtown Legion Man

Sidebar #4: Looking for new blood at Legion #106 in NDG

Sidebar #5: I love a girl in uniform