Victoria Cross Medal (left) Private Jess Randall Larochelle (right) [CORPORAL ISSA PARÉ, RIDEAU HALL © OSGG-BSGG, 2007; DND]

No VC for Jess Larochelle, says military

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

A high-profile campaign to upgrade an Afghanistan veteran’s valour award to a Victoria Cross is dead in the water, as far as the military and the head of its Directorate of Honours and Recognition are concerned.

But the group spearheading the effort says not so fast.

Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Gauthier told Legion Magazine that hard-and-fast time limits prevent Private Jess Larochelle from becoming the first soldier to receive the Canadian VC since it was created in 1993.

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Library and Archives Canada

Heroes of the House: the 1916 burning of Parliament

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

Although Parliament was in session debating the price of fish on the evening of Feb. 3, 1916, Nova Scotia MP Francis Glass was ensconced in the cozy reading room at the House of Commons. He noticed a fire had started in a wastebasket and called for help.

Within minutes the entire room was ablaze and instead of smothering the fire, the extinguisher scattered the embers, first igniting newspapers hanging from dowels along the walls, then nearby magazines and a collection of 20,000 books, some dating back more than a century.

In just a few hours, Canada’s seat of power, considered one of the finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the British Empire, was a pile of smouldering ruins.

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More from Military Milestones

• Prince of Death: Canada’s Indigenous war hero
• Port Arthur earns its U-boat bounty
• The Canadian who was the real life James Bond

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