Major-General (Retired) Richard Rohmer is a Second World War Veteran and is the Senior Canadian Veteran of D-Day and the Battles of Normandy, Belgium and Liberation of Holland. He has been very active in a spectrum of military, legal, corporate and Veteran-related activities since that time. Post war, he remained a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force Auxiliary and Reserve Force, eventually rising in rank and responsibility to first Chief of Reserves. His headquarters was at the National Defence Headquarters from 1978 to 1982. He was the chair of the 60th anniversary of D-Day celebrations, which took place in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Juno Beach in Normandy, France, on June 6, 2004. He co-chaired the advisory committee that created the Ontario Veterans’ Memorial, which was unveiled on September 17, 2006, in front of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in Queen’s Park. He is the Chair of the Premier of Ontario’s Ceremonial Advisory Council and was a member of the Order of Ontario Advisory Council for ten years. He chaired the significant Royal Commission on Book Publishing in 1971–72. With some 28 published books of fiction and non-fiction, he is a premier, best-selling, award-winning, Canadian author and columnist. He is a senior member of the Ontario Bar and Queen’s Counsel. With its unique Downton Abbey connection, the second edition of Sir John A’s Crusade and Seward’s Magnificent Folly, his historical novel on the 1866–67 Canadian negotiations with the British for autonomy and the British North America Act, was published by Dundurn Press in January, 2013. Major-General Rohmer is the Honorary Deputy Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, Honorary Chief of Toronto Emergency Medical Services, Honorary Chief of the Ontario Association of Paramedic Chiefs, the Patron of Toronto St. John Ambulance, Honorary Fire Chief of Collingwood and an Honorary Detective of the Toronto Police Service. He is currently serving as the Ministerial Advisor, to the Minister of Veterans Affairs, for the recently marked 70th anniversary of D-Day at Juno Beach and the upcoming Canadian commemorative events for the Liberation of Holland in the Netherlands in May, 2015.