Bill Bachellier - 5,000 Trees for 5,000 Heroes

Every Friday, Bill Bachellier proudly wears red to show his support for our servicemen and servicewomen. R.E.D. – Remember Everyone Deployed, is his weekly reminder that people are actively serving for us outside of Canada.

In Spring 2019, Bill was able to commemorate our Canadian heroes, past and present, by participating in a pilot planting through the Highway of Heroes Tree Campaign (HOHTC).

“Bill has an incredible passion for remembrance and the environment,” said Mike Hurley, Executive Director of HOHTC. “This combination brought us together and allowed us to plant thousands of trees in order to remember the millions who served to protect our country.”

With his property backing onto the Highway of Heroes in Grafton, Bill’s trees are now a part of a living tribute. “It just feels right for me…”, he explains, “it honours the memory of these couple million people that served, and for me it honours people that I know that have served, including family members.”

Like many people, Bill felt a sense of duty to serve our country and was a member of the reserves for 5 years in the 1960’s. Many of his family members have been involved with the military in different respects. Bill’s grandfather had served with the Royal Fusiliers out of London, England in WWI, and both of his parents served during WWII.

“My father’s military service started with the reserves and the 48th Highlanders in Toronto during the 1930’s.” In 1939, when they were forming a draft for the second world war, his father was eager to enlist, but told he was ‘too old’ as they were only taking people up to the age of 30. Bill chuckled as he explained, “He went down the street and came back younger the next day… In 1939, it was fairly easy to do that. But of course, he couldn’t admit that he knew anything about the infantry, so he wound up serving in the armoured corps.”

At that time, Bill’s mother was working for Inglis making machine gun barrels and decided to join the Canadian Women’s Army Corps serving in Kingston and Ottawa. During WWII, the Canadian Women’s Army Corps was established as a non-combatant branch of the Canadian Army for women. Bill’s siblings and his children also have military service in various capacities.

Bill is an active member of the Grafton Legion and has always been very passionate about remembrance and honouring those who serve our country. He recalled when they first started gathering on the bridges during the repatriations in the 2000’s that he felt the public wasn’t aware of the legion’s presence. He thought, “How will people know we are representing veterans?” It was then that Bill suggested to the legion president that the colour party take part in the repatriations, and soon after other legions followed suit.

With so many ties to the military, and such a direct link to the Highway of Heroes repatriations, it just made sense that Bill would take part in housing some of our living tribute.  The trees that stand at attention on his lawn are a reflection of his friends and family members who served, and are a reminder of the millions more who fought before and after him.

Bill reflects on the 5,000 trees now planted on his property, “It’s really not for me, it’s in honour of some other people who I don’t know, and the benefit will be reaped by somebody else who I may not know.”

For more information about tree planting through our Private Landowner Partnership Program, please visit https://hohtribute.ca/plp.