11 Days of Remembrance: The Real Wonder Women

Like I do every year, I made my way to a Legion table, and added more pins to my collection. However, of the five pins I bought today, the one that was pointed out to me by the lovely ladies behind the table was the Canada's Military Women: Celebrating 70 Years of Service pin.

The pin led to a conversation and the story of my great-gram, and the other farm wives who went on to form the Binbrook Willing Workers group (I wrote about them in a previous 11DR miniseries), a reminder that many women were still active contributors to the effort while holding down the fort on the home front.

The pin gave me pause. I found myself thinking about wartime women. Do I know any personally? How many fearless females could I think of? I'm certain I don't know of enough! I don't know of enough Florence Nightingales -nurses extraordinaire- by name. There simply has to be more Kristine Swires in the world, a former padre to my old cadet squadron and the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry. The world needs more ladies of leadership, like Nichola Goddard, only this time, please don't come home draped in the maple leaf.

And then there are the young girls. Everyone is well aware of the story of Anne Frank. But there's also Esther Hautzig, a Polish Jew whose family was exiled to Siberia as war was breaking out -and the exile saved her life, along with the lives of her parents. Ever hear of Sophie Scholl? She and her brother founded the White Rose group, a resistance group to counteract the Hitler Youth and the Nazis. Sophie was tried and executed for treason at the age of 21, fighting on behalf of those who couldn't.

When you think about it, the Wonder Woman we should look up to don't wear bulletproof bracelets and a lasso of truth. Real Wonder Women wear camouflage.