24-05-06, 04:37
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Hello,
I really enjoyed reading this .... K. 
Quote:
May 23, 2006
War vets meet after 30 years
By SANDY NAIMAN -- Toronto Sun
They were known as "the men behind the men behind the guns" but this was a badge of honour for the gals in the Women's Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
"They never thought to call us 'women.' They were so chauvinistic," said Geraldine Muter, 90.
"It was always all about the men," added Mary Rainville, 85.
Now, both widowed, Muter lives in the veteran's wing at Sunnybrook hospital and Rainville in the Tony Stacey Centre for Veteran's Care. But for 62 years, their lives have coincidentally crossed paths.
Yesterday decked out in their airforce blue and black plaid, their lapels heavy with medals, they reminisced over the yellowing pages of their scrapbooks.
These brave women, feminists before their time, are the unsung heroines of the war who rarely receive the attention they deserve.
"There were good times and there were bad times, too," Rainville said.
"We were inspected by Princess Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace and met the Queen Mother, but my hair turned white dodging buzz bombs and V2s," Muter said.
Rainville described one of her most gruesome tasks, sorting through the bloodied uniforms of dead soldiers after they were shot down.
They met only once in 1944 when they both were stationed in London and working in administration posts with the RCAF. It was a casual, inconsequential meeting and they never saw each other again overseas.
In 1957, they met for the first time since the war when, by chance, Rainville moved into a house next to Muter's in Sturgeon Falls, where their daughters became acquainted.
"That's really where it began and they've lived parallel lives since then," Rainville's daughter Maureen Cooling, 53, said.
Years later, both daughters happened to move into same Bayview and Eglinton neighbourhood in Toronto and started bumping into each other at local grocery stores.
"One day when I ran into Margaret Anne (Muter's daughter) I said, 'You look like your mother.' She said, I looked like mine. That's when I suggested they call each other. They have so few friends left. So since February they've been chatting on the phone," Cooling said.
Last month, they ran into each other again at an "Old Sweats" Legion dinner at the Tony Stacey Centre.
"It doesn't seem to matter how many years pass, whenever we see each other and start talking about the war, it seems like yesterday," Rainville said.
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