Our Last Posts aim to honour the military service of the deceased CME Family member and to provide some record of their service and accomplishments. A Last Post will normally be based on a newspaper obituary or one published by a funeral home. These obituaries are often short on Service Career Details, however, and we depend heavily on the contributions of colleagues to add to this information. Such information can be sent by email to: Last.Posts@cmea-agmc.ca   or by using the form, below.

Service Career

The details of the service career of a veteran are often forgotten by families – particularly with the older veterans who have been retired for a considerable time. While privacy laws prevent us from accessing a Service Personnel File, the CMEA has some research capability to assist in finding some details of a person's military career. Other details must be assembled from open sources and information provided by colleagues. When submitting information for a Last Post, ‘bullet form’ items will suffice and should focus on information that can be recalled about the individual's service career. Requested information includes:

• enlistment
• trade(s) and specialties
• unit postings (including dates)
• deployments
• honours, medals and awards received

Even partial information should be sent to us as soon as one becomes aware of a passing – even if only learned through social media. We can often match such basic information with material available in open sources and any family obituary to prepare a meaningful summary of the service career.

Second Career

Many veterans have gone to a rewarding Second Career and we try to acknowledge this aspect. These details should also be submitted.

Photos

We try to accompany a Last Post with up to three illustrations. The primary one would ideally be a recent head-and-shoulders picture in colour while a secondary picture could portray a different aspect or era of the individual. We can generally produce an acceptable head-and-shoulders version after photoediting a submission. Ideally, at least one of these photos should show the individual in uniform. A graphic of an appropriate badge will also be included and this will be the default where a photo is not available.

Photos should be provided with a minimum resolution of 200 DPI to ensure good display on the webpage. When you email a photo, please send the attachments at their original size and ensure that the mailing application is not reducing the photo size/resolution.