A special ceremony in Whitecourt honours Edmonton veteran

Jeff Rainey, a veteran from Edmonton, was in Whitecourt last week to participate in a special medal ceremony, two years in the making. Retired from active duty since 2012, Rainey found out he was owed medals from previous service and sought out Whitecourt veteran Kyle Scott to help him back in April 2020. “With his service, he had some unique deployments, and one of them was a Theatre Activation Team which is a short deployment. It’s usually on a task to go tear something down, set something up or move stuff in or out,” explained Scott.

“He found himself in Turkey helping move gear into Afghanistan for the eventual move up to Kabul. That deployment came and went, and he came home. Then the inevitable mass deployments to Kabul and Kandahar came, and we all went and did our thing. Jeff released from the military a few years down the road, and it dawned on him that that deployment was never recognized,” said Scott.

Finding medals and honours for veterans was right up Scott’s alley, and Rainey knew it. “As it happens in the chaos and confusion of paperwork and deployment, often things like this get missed, especially short deployments. So, we got to talking, and I went and looked at the list, and sure enough, there was his deployment. He was entitled to a General Service Medal for Southwest Asia.”

On Saturday, October 15, Rainey arrived in Whitecourt and met Scott at the cenotaph in front of the Seniors Circle. With a few Whitecourt’s Royal Canadian Legion members in attendance, Scott pinned Rainey with his long-awaited medals. Rainey received his General Service Medal for Southwest Asia and a rotation bar signifying two tours.

Scott said that getting to do the presentation in person was very important. “At the end of the day, it’s more important to me that veterans feel respected and that their service meant something rather than just an envelope that arrives in their mailbox.” He added that helping veterans get their medals and honours keeps their stories alive and shared. “I really value this because I know how much I value my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s service, and their medals hang proudly on my wall. That allows me to tell their story every chance I get. I feel that by doing this, veterans can pass these down to their children, and their stories will never die.”

For Rainey, modern veterans and older veterans are living history. “There’s a gap in the memory of society in that even, say, post-2004 and post-2006, when things heated up in Afghanistan, new veterans would sometimes attend events and wouldn’t be thought of as real veterans because real veterans were seniors. But those seniors were once young and were new veterans as well. There’s a real relevance there to have these,” he explained.

Scott has now had his hands involved in 900 cases where he has personally helped a veteran receive something owed to them. Rainey said he is happy to have been one of them. “When I got out of the military in 2012, it was on a low note. In the years since, there’s been an upward arc of how much more I value stuff like this. My daughter is eleven years old. She was a baby when I got out, and she’s never been to a Remembrance Day ceremony. Before 2006, even from when I was a teenager, I could count on one hand how many Remembrance Day ceremonies I’d missed. But since 2006, it’s a pretty intense day for me.”

This isn’t the first time Rainey has visited Whitecourt, having previously tubed the river. He said he was glad to be back. “Having this ceremony is all part of the events and the memories of the past, both good and bad, coalescing now to a suitable place in my mind and my life that I can have it in a more positive way, “said Rainey.

Scott said that not every veteran chooses to wear their medals or attend ceremonies, and that’s ok. “For a lot of them, those are bad memories. They might be proud of serving, but what they had to go through to get those medals isn’t always something they want to talk about. They might be twenty or thirty years old when they come home, and maybe by the time they are sixty or seventy, they will be in a place where they want to talk about it, and at least they will have them (medals) already, if and when that day comes.”

Rainey thanked Scott for helping him get his medals and for providing the presentation. “I wanted to join the military my whole life, even as a young kid. There’s a school picture of me, and I’m wearing a green shirt with cars on it, a gift from my godmother. I loved it because it was green and the pattern, to me, looked like an army uniform. I wore it two years in a row. The second year, I had almost outgrown it, and you can see it in the picture,” chuckled Rainey. “I miss it terribly, every single day. The uniqueness of the job and the bonds you create with the people you serve with are intensely strong. I would say, as strong as and sometimes even stronger than family. I would return to day one and start all over in a heartbeat.”

Should residents have questions about their loved one’s service medals, or if they are in the process of trying to attain medals owed to them, they are encouraged to join Scott’s group on Facebook, Canadian Veterans: Owed or Missing Medals, and to reach out.