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Gordon Moore, Dominion President of The Royal Canadian Legion, had not yet heard of Mr. Woodcock’s plan when I spoke with him about it Thursday.

“I fully support their cause,” he says. “Our veterans need to be recognized and I hope that they can get this off the ground. It is a good idea. They can call me directly if they want my help.”

Mr. Moore and the legion branches he represents raised about $160,000 in support of the Afghanistan Repatriation Memorial, located outside Canadian Forces Base Trenton. And like everyone else who learns about the Bowmanville Threes Bridge Plan — he likes it — because it is a good idea.

But here is the problem: the three men behind it — an 89-year-old war hero, an inventor, an unsuccessful mayoral candidate — are big-hearted and earnest and clueless as to how to bring their vision to life. They are dreamers, after all, and to get from a painting of the bridge, which is being carted around in the back of Mr. Woodcock’s white SUV, to the bricks and mortar of a memorial that Canadians would see for miles around could be a 1,000,000:1 long shot.

Or else it might just work.

For now, they talk about it. They make plans. They want to go to Parliament. They want to go to Queen’s Park. But for Sam Magee, it is time to go home.

He asks the waitress for a doggy bag, gazes at his hands, at his empty beer bottle, and cracks. “They used to call me one drink Williams.”

Then the twinkle in his blue eyes ebbs away.

“I’m a killer, you know,” he says, holding my gaze. “People don’t think like that. But it is what I am. And I’ve had to live with these bastards [looks down at his hands] since 1946…

“You asked me why I got involved with Jeremy? Because it is a worthwhile dream, because it is about honouring what we are so lucky to have in this country.”

National Post

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