happen if they fell overboard.

Thompson was in hospital for weeks on end, then began staff and paper work at Canadian Military Headquarters in London, all the time longing to go back out and fight with his regiment.

"I missed the contact with peo-

"

ple. Though his leg was not ready

for it, he finally began heading back to where his fellow soldiers were fight- ing. He wore a special type of boot that climbed to his knee; the shorter ones rubbed the wound he had gotten in France.

Thompson recalls the doctor saying that when he came into the hospital, the doctor was going to flip a coin to decide whether or not he would amputate his injured leg.

But after all the walking, his leg hurt so bad he had to go back. Even today he wonders if he hurt his leg even more by doing so, but he is glad he tried going back.

Thompson arrived back in Canada May 1945 and went to British Columbia to the Pacific Training Brigade. When the war with Japan ended he went back to New Brunswick, serving a short stint at Camp Sussex before being discharged a year later. During his time, he received many medals - 1939-1947 Star; France and Germany Star,

Pr oil Defence Medal, C.V.S.M. and Clasp War Medal, Canadian Efficiency Medal, Canadian Forces Decoration, Coronation Medal, Centennial Medal and the Jubilee Medal. His house is adorned with many other photographs, including one of him with Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and oth- ers of a memorial he helped secure in France.

For a time, he wanted to go to university and become a lawyer, but the universities were so full he had to think of alternate career options. His choice? The Royal Canadian Legion. He recalls it being an interesting time as he was helping veterans and their dependants receive the benefits they were entitled to postwar. After serving in New Brunswick for a couple of

years, he moved to Ottawa to become executive assistant to what was called Dominion Secretary of the Legion.

Just like in the military, he rose through the ranks.

He says he felt privileged to help veterans.

He was appointed Chairman of the War Veterans Board, an independ- ent agency with Veterans Affairs.

"I was now in a position to remedy many of the injustices I had previously complained of," he says of that position.

In 1979 he was appointed Honourary Colonel and a year later, when Veterans Affairs moved to

Charlottetown, Thompson and his wife

moved with them - and he has been in Prince Edward Island ever since. In

1989 he retired. Not one to sit ina rocking chair, he has been active in the community even to today, working with the Provincial Seniors Advisory Council among many other things. In fact, his picture and biography are included in a brochure for an Ottawa Walking Tour - Heroes 2001.

Each day, there was a new password among the men so they could identi-.

fy themselves. When

Thompson came face to face with a stun gun, he heard someone say, “Punch.”

Thompson often wishes it did- n't take so many studies and reports to get things done nowadays, saying, "I often think that if D-Day had been planned by today's standards of plan- ning, we would all have been receiving Old Age Pension before we landed."

What Thompson remembers the most, though, is the feeling of family he had with all of the men he served within the battle. When some- one helps someone in battle, it is not because of the pay they receive. "He does it because he's one of the family. It's what's there on the ground that counts," he says.

‘But one of his favourite say- ings that he was used ever since he was in the Cameron Highlands?

"We may: not have been the best, but there were none better."