November Eleventh

Heroes Remember

November Eleventh

Transcript

November 11th is a day to so many that means to get on parade and then after go and get a free beer, and what not, and get into a lot of stories. To me it's different. I go on parade. I go home. I generally sit there and to me, I meditate, I think. I’m just so thankful that I am here. I felt many a times, why was I saved, and I left the others? I left twenty nine of us I realize now I'm the only one left. We left twenty some over there that didn’t make it. They didn’t make Dieppe, they didn’t make the rest. And one of the fellows that I’ll always remember was my friend, Oscar Albrecht, Olly, because I was with Olly when he met the young lady in England that he was supposed to marry. I was supposed to be his best man. He never made it from the Falaise Gap. I spent many hours with the bride to be after, talking to her and making her realize that she had to go on in life. That she could not sit down in sorrow. That the living must go on. And these are the things that go through my mind. The fellows that I trained with, the fellows that I instructed and worked with and some of my buddies that were in the Intelligence with me. I wonder where they are. What they’re doing. That is my theme for November 11th.

Description

Mr. Decker explains how he spends remembrance day and shares a special memory of his friend Oscar Albrecht.

Ted Decker

Ted Decker was born in 1918 in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan. His father was an an immigrant from Austria, and worked in a coal mine in Drumheller at first, before working on farms in Southern Saskatchewan. His Mother was a district midwife who delivered over 60 babies in the area. Mr. Decker grew up with two brothers and three sisters,in a community where a Germany pastor taught him on Saturdays to read and write different languages including German. He went to school until grade seven and worked on a farm until he was seventeen. In 1940 Mr. Decker went into Yorkton to enlist and was denied, he was finally sworn in on February 5,1941 as a volunteer with the south Saskatchewan regiment as a reinforcement. After his father disowned him for joining the army he took an non-commissioned officer's course and he worked as a firing range instructor at Fort Osborne,Winnipeg until he left for overseas on December 13.

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