To the editor: Re: "East Side Cadets searching for space," Aug. 7. If only this story had been written 18 years ago! I grew up on Commercial Drive and I only learned about cadets through a friend of mine at Van Tech who was a member of 759. I had a great experience with the program, participating in band camp for several summers, and I was even fortunate enough to be awarded a scholarship to earn my private pilot license. These were opportunities I never could have afforded on my own and they opened many doors for me that, as a kid growing up in East Van, I never knew existed.
A cadet squadron in Vancouver would have saved me the humiliation of taking the #35 bus all the way to Willingdon in uniform (or inconveniently carrying it in a large garment bag during rush hour), during the late '90s - a dark time for anyone in uniform. It would have provided the opportunity for many of my friends to at least come and see what this program I was so passionate about actually looked like. It would have enabled youth in the area to show what dedicated citizens we were becoming, within our own community instead of someone else's. I would have been proud to bugle "The Last Post" at the cenotaph in Grandview Park on Remembrance Day for my friends and neighbours.
I did join the military after I "aged out" of cadets, but most of my friends did not.
Jessica Michaelis-Webb
Petawawa, Ont.
