Time sets some things right!

Good Morning Everyone,

Isn't it good to know how often TIME will eventually set things right ... "a soldier is a soldier is a soldier" and recognition and respect for service, IMHO, should be a given. Better late than never ... progress is built upon the sweat and blood of those who came, and did, "before". None of us REALLY got where we're at "ALONE".



Karmen

Mon, February 14, 2005

Halifax honours first black man to win VC

By CP

HALIFAX -- The first Victoria Cross won by a black man and a Nova Scotian went on display last week in Halifax. William Hall, born in Nova Scotia's King's County, won the British military's top bravery award for volunteering to man a massive cannon during an assault on Lucknow, India, in 1857.

"This guy was like wrought iron," said Henry Bishop, chief curator of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia.

Hall's medals are part of a temporary display now at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

"Like many young Nova Scotians in the age of sail, he went to sea, discovered the world, encountered extraordinary challenges and lived a life of quite remarkable adventure," said John Hennigar-Shuh, the museum's general manager.

"But beyond that, he was a true hero -- independent, determined, loyal to his comrades and amazingly courageous."

The son of freed slaves joined the Royal Navy in 1852 after shipping out on American merchant and naval ships.

He got a small pension, but died a poor farmer who was buried in Avonport in 1904 without military honours in an unmarked grave.

It took three decades for Hall's bravery to win him public recognition re in Nova Scotia.