Veteran overcomes PTSD for great uncles at Vernon Remembrance Day

Hundreds of people gathered in Cenotaph Park seemed daunting. So many bodies, so many faces, so many potential outcomes. It’s a struggle Doreen Lambert faces each Remembrance Day as a Royal Canadian Air Force veteran suffering from PTSD. Staying put at home has been the usual course of action, but the last couple years, she has been able to overcome her trepidation and turn out for the day she once stood guard on. But, more importantly, for her great uncles, whose names are etched on the monument in the Vernon park. Arthur and Herald Penning both fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April of 1917. And both made it through, “which is crazy,” Lambert said. But they both died in France. Another uncle, Charles Lee, also fought in the First World War, but he made it back home to Vernon. Sadly, as a lineman working at the former Powerhouse Theatre site, Lambert said he fell off a ladder and was impaled and died.

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