Royal Netherlands Army

And it's a bit of a special time for us, both for Dirk and for me, because we are ex-military in Holland, in fact.

And Dirk was a veteran in Holland, was quite involved in the Dutch Army.

And we talked about that a little bit in terms of what he was doing.

And then... about 10 years ago, decided to come to Canada, in particular in his background has been with cancer, cancer research, and has been very, very involved with the Hospital of Northern British Columbia in Prince George.

the Air Force and but I saw the brutality of war and felt that personally from the time that I was three and a half years old that I was aware of it seeing people being shot right in front of our house and and dragged out of their houses and then having sitting around is just my mom and three little kids around a little heater to stay Warm, burning in the front and cold in the back.

And then my dad was gone.

He was drafted into the Dutch Army in April of 1940.

And, you know, and the Dutch Army, because they thought the Germans would go right through the Hitler.

Why not? Why? Why not? Get a medal.

Why? You get a proper Netherlands Army medal.

It's a legitimate thing.

I think it'd be fun.

And then anxiety.

My dad was called into the Dutch Army, uh, in April of 1940.

I was, I, my mom had two children, a boy and a girl, and was pregnant with me.

I was born November the 1st, 1940.

Um, and there were literally three armies taking part.

The British Army on the Rhine, the Polish Army, I think, and the Dutch Army, of course.

Um, you know, all agreed to participate in the... what for them was a practice, was a military practice, but what for us was the, the biggest scene in the movie.

Was, you know.

There's a whole organization behind the whole thing.

Always forgot the password.

We had some, um, some American tanks of our own and, uh, we had the, the Dutch Army tanks, which we used for the Germans.

Um, they were pretty impressive when they came over, and they, they'd drive through, over anything, um, which they did on a couple of occasions.