When brothers Ron and Ryan Anderson were kids, they would often play “army” in the woods, which didn’t surprise their mother Maureen in the slightest.
“Way back from there, they were destined to go to the army,” muses the 78-year-old at her home in Oromocto, N.B.
After all, the Andersons are a military family.
Maureen’s father, John “Jack” Kelly, joined the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment when he was just 17 years old, and fought overseas in the Second World War. Her mother was his British war bride.
Her grandfather served in the British Royal Navy in the First World War. His ship was bombed and he was among the survivors left swimming for their lives.
She remembers watching him habitually rubbing his hands together years later.
Once she left high school, Maureen trained as a licensed practical nurse, and then joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.
While working at the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa, she met her husband, Peter.
“Yep, he was one of my patients. He asked me for a date and the rest is history,” she laughs.
Peter was with the Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa at the time.
After they were married, he was stationed overseas with the Royal Canadian Regiment.
Their first son, Ron, was born was Germany.
Their second child, Ryan, came five years later, after the family returned to New Brunswick and settled in Oromocto.
Each boy left high school early to enlist, training first at nearby CFB Gagetown.
“I think Peter was pretty happy, of course, because that’s what he wanted them to do. Join the army, see the world,” says Maureen.
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They went on to complete combat training — Ron at CFB Petawawa, and Ryan at the 4th Canadian Division Training Centre in Meaford, Ont.
Over the next several years, her sons were sent on multiple overseas deployments to places such as Bosnia, Ethiopia, and Haiti.
Then came Afghanistan. Ron went first in 2003.
“That was a worrisome time. And I wrote him continuously, every time I sat down at the table I was writing him a letter,” she recalls, “and he would write back and he wouldn’t say too much what was going on. But if he did say anything, he would say, ‘This isn’t to leave this letter.’”
Ron was then joined by his younger brother on another deployment to Afghanistan in 2007.
While they were there, six Canadians were killed by a roadside bomb on an Easter Sunday, in what was the worst single-day Canadian Forces death toll in combat since the Korean War.
The Anderson brothers had been friends with many of the soldiers killed because they had all been based at CFB Gagetown in the same regiment.
Maureen was relieved when her sons came home alive later that year.
But soon she noticed her boys had changed.
“I found Ron was different. Hyper, anxious,” Maureen explains. “I thought nothing of it at the time, because he was a little bit like that.”
He was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
That PTSD led to his sudden death in 2014 at 39 years old.
It was only after his passing that Maureen and Peter learned he had been recognized by the Canadian Armed Forces for heroism during his time in Afghanistan.
“He helped save a little boy’s life that was hit with a car right ahead of them, and he jumped out to help the boy. And the guy that was with him said, ‘No, don’t get out. You’re crazy.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m not leaving that little boy on the road.”
Maureen says Ron administered first aid, while armed Afghan hostiles stood around him.
She says Ron likely didn’t tell his parents about the recognition, because he never liked to be the centre of attention.
“So I didn’t know anything about that until after he passed away,” she says, “and I was just flabbergasted.”
His commendation certificate is now framed with a photo of Ron in Maureen’s apartment.
Ryan took Ron’s death hard amidst his own struggles with psychological trauma.
He would often call his mother in the middle of the night and ask her to come over.
“And lot of times he would just put videos on the TV and we watch that, but he wouldn’t talk much,” she remembers. “He was very quiet. A lot of times he would cry, and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He wouldn’t answer me, just kept crying, and I felt so helpless.”
It all took a toll on him. Ryan also died suddenly in 2017 at the age of 38.
Maureen’s husband, Peter, then passed away the following year.
He’s now buried alongside his sons, the couple’s only children, and Maureen visits the cemetery almost every day.
“I just think about the good things we had, and the good laughs,” she says.
Maureen says in the toughest times, friends of her sons would often visit her, which provided much-needed comfort.
She now finds strength in the total of six grandchildren Ron and Ryan left behind, watching them grow up and make lives of their own.
Ron’s oldest son chose to pursue a military career and now serves with the Royal Canadian Regiment, just as his father did.
Maureen says being chosen as the Legion’s 2024 National Silver Cross Mother has been overwhelming, but also a great honour.
When she lays a wreath at the National Remembrance Day Ceremony in Ottawa, she will represent all families who have lost loved ones to the horrors of war.
And she will be thinking of her sons.
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