Gordon Finnie was born March 2, 1931 in Toronto, where he grew up in the Parkdale neighbourhood.  Gord grew up during the tough times of the Great Depression and the Second World War, and he and his brothers delivered newspapers to help the family out.  His parents worked at the Palace Theatre on the Danforth.  Gord’s father was a veteran of the First World War, where he had survived the terrible weapon of poison gas, and in the Second World War he reenlisted, and he was assigned as a guard to watch over German POWs in Canada.  Gord left Western Tech after Grade 10, taking a job at the CPR Depot in downtown Toronto.  When he was 18 he decided to enlist in the army, and he was assigned to the Royal Canadian Regiment, and later he was deployed to Korea.  Gord was a specialist in signals, or military communications.  When the time for deployment to Korea came the men were shipped to Fort Lewis in Washington state, and from there they made the long journey to Busan, Korea.  Gord and the rest of the UN contingent pushed the North Koreans back up the peninsula, prompting a Chinese counterattack, and a cessation of hostilities followed in 1953.  Gord had returned to Canada by then, and was back at work on the railway, now with a family of his own to raise in 1950s Canada.  Gord Finnie was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in Brighton, Ontario in October 2024.