This story was published in the Montreal Gazette Newspaper
HOPE, B.C. — David Munro was carrying his memories of fallen soldiers with him when he carried the Olympic flame Sunday.
Munro, a 72-year-old Canadian veteran and UN peacekeeper who served in Suez, the Sinai Desert and the Gaza Strip, was one of 120 veterans selected by the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee to be a torchbearer.
The fit and stocky senior with white eyebrows and bright blue eyes, joined the Canadian Forces at 16, and has been active in veterans affairs throughout his life.
He joked and shared his torch in pictures with Hope locals on Sunday morning — Day 101 of the Olympic flame’s cross-Canada journey — before running his 300-metre relay through a long line of residents bearing international flags, to the steps of the city hall.
Hope is about 150 kilometres east of the flame’s final destination — Vancouver — where it will begin the Winter Games on Feb. 12.
A Newfoundland native now living in Chemainus, B.C., Munro did a happy jig on his two torch exchanges.
He was welcomed by about 15 family members who had travelled from across Canada to cheer him on.
When he finished, he said he was filled with emotion.
“We left 40 UN guys buried in Gaza,” Munro said.
“I was thinking of all the veterans and everyone serving in Afghanistan.
“It was such excitement seeing all those people cheering me,” he said.
Sunday’s portion of the torch relay started in Merritt, B.C., at 7 a.m.
About 3,000 spectators had cheered and waved Canadian flags when the torch arrived in Merritt on a chilly Saturday night.
Warren King watched a torchbearer nearly sprint by and snapped a slightly blurred picture for his 12-week-old son, Cannon, who was napping in a stroller.
“We’re here so we can show my son the picture some day,” King said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
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