Eldon Comfort
Inside Toronto reports, “Ninety-eight-year-old Second World War veteran Eldon Comfort answers the door of his North York apartment wearing a peace activist T-shirt. ‘It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber,’ the slogan reads. Not, perhaps, the message you would expect a veteran who served as a lieutenant with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany from 1942 to 1945 to have emblazoned on his chest. But Comfort isn’t ordinary by any standard.”
“It was his service during the war that turned Comfort into a peace activist. A reluctant soldier from the beginning, he signed up because he felt the Allies were fighting a just cause against the Nazis. But he was shaken when he saw row upon row of gravestones for Canadian soldiers at the cemetery at Dieppe. At the end of the war, Comfort’s unit was assigned to guard large numbers of prisoners of war. He realized the supposedly ruthless enemy were actually ‘pitiful looking men, just boys. Bedraggled, hungry, bewildered. I thought, are those my enemies? Although I knew it before, it strengthened my resolve there had to be a better way.'”
“He now serves as a member of a number of prestigious organizations including the Canadian Peace Alliance, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Amnesty International, Conscience Canada and the Council of Canadians.”
“Although Comfort is closing in on a century, looking forward to celebrating his 99th birthday on Oct. 4, his sharp wit, remarkable memory and dedication to making the world a better place make him seem a man many decades younger.”
To read more about Eldon’s life story, go to http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/local/article/1012748–finding-comfort-in-a-long-life-well-lived.
