My book signings at Coles in the Place d'Orleans Mall seems to be unusually good. The quiet Ottawa suburb of Orleans seems to to be a hive of people interested in military history. I was surprised at first, but then told that lots of personnel from DND Headquarters have chosen to live there. My book singing on March 12, 2001 was particularly satisfying. I met a presently-serving soldier who had won the Medal of Bravery in Afghanistan; a woman also in the Forces who has been in Kandahar as a supply clerk; a retired officer who had been the Canadian military attache in Paris when the Juno Beach Centre was officially opened; a retired soldier who had spent the first years of his long career in Camp Ipperwash in 1953 when I was there for the summer as a cadet (some of my best memories); a civilian who had just driven to Ottawa from far-away Labrador City to visit his daughter and who was keen enough to buy both of my books. It's meeting people like this that re-energizes me to write more about the Canadian military experience.
