Whisky Alpha Romeo show prompts exploration?

Whisky Alpha Romeo is tagged as a demonstration of a Generation Xer’s search for “what it all means,” when it comes to observing a moment of silence on Remembrance Day each year.

Creator Marianne Garrah said the exhibit, now showing at the Yellowhead Museum and Archives, stems from her youth, when she questioned everything.

“When Nov. 11 rolled around I often wondered what ‘Lest we forget’ meant,” Garrah said. “I thought, ‘Shouldn’t that be let us forget?? Why remember such horror? Why an annual celebration of war?’”

The distaste, she said, stayed with her until she came across a letter tacked to the wall at a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. It was addressed to a Canadian soldier from two European sisters.

“They wanted to thank him for his part in saving their lives during the war,” Garrah said.?“At that time they were only children, but even after 35 years they sought out the soldier who had saved them from something I as a Canadian can only imagine – the terror of being 10 and in a war-torn world.”

After that experience, Garrah said she never questioned Remembrance Day again.

The show contains several displays, including one that consists of a group of children’s small, plastic airplane toys, with a question that reads, “Do you know which one is a Canadian widowmaker?”

“I do, it’s this one,” Garrah said, pointing out that it’s called the widowmaker because of its short wingspan, which meant if the engine was blown out the plane would plummet straight down to the earth.

There is also a children’s table containing a comic strip, in which the characters play with toy dart guns.? The words are blanked out so kids can add in their own dialogue, Garrah said.

A number of artefacts are also on display throughout the exhibit, as well as a dummy mocked up as a war deserter. A bumper sticker on the wall behind him reads, “I don’t need a war to power my bicycle.”

The film Nurse Edith Cavell, which was shown on Remembrance Day, will be played again at 2 p.m. on the last day of the exhibit, Nov. 16.