Gaining insight as a mature graduate page 19
Surrey man’s poker face worth $1 million page 4
Wednesday November 10, 2010 Serving Surrey and North Delta www.surreyleader.com
A mother’s lament: ‘My baby, my baby...’
Students remember ‘forgotten soldiers’
Victims’ statements read at Carol Berner’s drunk driving sentencing by Tracy Holmes
Seaquam Secondary teens acknowledge peacekeepers stationed in Sierra Leone
A MOTHER and grandmother recalled
by Boaz Joseph AT A TIME when Canada remembers its fallen men and women in wars of the past century – including today’s troops in Afghanistan – two local 17-year-olds are organizing a mass tribute to one special group of soldiers. Celina Lam and Victor Chern call these members “the forgotten soldiers” of the Canadian Armed Forces. This week, the Seaquam Secondary Grade 12 students are gathering hundreds of hand-written letters and short messages at their school to send to a contingent of eight Canadian peacekeepers who are stationed in Sierra Leone. Far away from the limelight of Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers have been engaged in combat duties since 2002, Sierra Leone has been assisted by Canadian troops over the same period, which began less than three years after the West African counCelina Lam try’s bloody civil war ended in 1999. What was left was a shattered country, and an army hardly able to keep the peace by itself. That army inherited thousands of illiterate soldiers, few drivers, sparse tools or spare parts for its limited equipment, little money to pay soldiers and almost no formal training. While several thousand United Nations soldiers (including Canadians) patrolled the streets for the first few years to keep the peace,
“They’re doing so much for that country, which has been broken by civil war.”
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BOAZ JOSEPH / THE LEADER
Seaquam Secondary Grade 12 students Celina Lam and Victor Chern, both 17, are organizing the collection of hundreds of letters and messages from students that will be sent to 13 Canadian Peacekeepers stationed in Sierra Leone.
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their pain dealing with the death of four-year-old Alexa Middelaer, at a sentencing hearing Monday for the impaired driver who killed her. Prosecutors asked Surrey Provincial Court Monday morning to sentence Carol Berner, 58, to three to five years in prison. The defence asked for no jail time. Immediately after Berner’s own statement in the late afternoon – in Alexa Middelaer which she apologized to Alexa’s family and said she will never drink and never drive again – she suffered what appeared to be a panic attack, and the court was adjourned while first-aid attendants Carol Berner were called. Judge Peder Gulbransen had announced shortly before Berner stood that he would reserve judgment until Nov. 12. About 60 spectators attended Monday’s sentencing hearing, many of whom were wearing purple, including
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