Ron Kirk served in the Canadian Forces in the post-WW2 period, when Canada’s peacekeeping reputation was being established. Ron served in the navy, and he spent time in Korea during that nation’s 1950-53 war. Ron and his shipmates patrolled the Korean west coast, doing their part to counter North Korea’s efforts to export communism. He also spent time on the peninsula, where Ron remembers visiting an orphanage, and seeing the suffering that war brought to so many. He and the many Canadian soldiers who served in Korea did what they could to alleviate those difficult conditions, something for which they were remembered and thanked on subsequent trips to South Korea.
Mr. Kirk visited us at Crestwood in April 2018, when he and fellow Canadian Forces veterans Mike Vencel and Andy Barber shared their stories with Mr. Hawkins’ CHC2D class.