Every year, Virginia Hicks visits Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in northern Ontario. That’s where her daughter Sapper Mariebeth Short was killed during a training exercise on Sept. 23, 2002.
Sapper Short enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in 2000, eventually landing at 2CER, a combat engineering regiment, at CFB Petawawa in 2001.
“She was a go-getter. She never stopped, she never quit,” Hicks said.
Sapper Short was preparing for a possible deployment to Afghanistan or Bosnia. She was 22 years old when she died.
Virginia Hicks is this year’s national Silver Cross Mother, an annual tradition by the Royal Canadian Legion recognizing the mother of a fallen Canadian Armed Forces member each Remembrance Day.
The 4’11” combat engineer who proved everyone wrong
“It’s a club nobody wants to belong to,” Hicks told CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault from her home in Frankford, Ont. “In order to receive one, someone you love had to have died.”
Short was killed when the light armoured vehicle (LAV) she was in rolled over during a training exercise.
Hicks’ annual visit to CFB Petawawa with her husband Brian has become one way for the family to honour her daughter’s time in service.
Sapper Mariebeth Short was killed in a LAV rollover on CFB Petawawa in 2002. (Virginia Hicks)
At the crash site, a small bush in 2002 has grown to stand many feet above Hicks’ head.
“I think her pride in her job has kind of fallen back on us. I know that she’s passed, she’s in a better place.”
As the Silver Cross Mother, Hicks will lay a wreath at the cenotaph in Ottawa during the national ceremony on Nov. 11.
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This year’s Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa will also be taking place a few weeks after a deadly grass fire swept through a training area at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. Four soldiers were killed, and dozens more were seriously injured on Oct. 17.
Sgt. Morgan Wong, 26, Pte. Shaun Farrell, 23, Pte. Aidan Goulding, 23, and Pte. Hayden Lykkemark, 19, lost their lives and are being mourned across the country. A military investigation into the training accident is underway.
This composite image shows the soldiers who died following a fire at CFB Wainwright in Alberta. From left: Pte. Shaun Farrell, Pte. Aidan Goulding, Pte. Hayden Lykkemark and Sgt. Morgan Wong. (Canadian Armed Forces/The Canadian Press)
Hicks remembers when she first heard about what happened in Wainwright.
“We were sitting on the couch and all of a sudden it was just like you had a cold shower. I was like, oh my God, not again,” Hicks recalled.
“I said, well, I now have four more members of our club.”
Silver Cross Mother urges CFB Wainwright families to ‘have faith’
Hicks empathizes with the families of those who died at CFB Wainwright. They will now also be awarded a Memorial Cross, a decoration given to those whose loved one died in service.
“I’m hoping that other Memorial Cross recipients understand that there is support. There’s people out there that can help you with whatever you want, and your child or your husband or your wife are never going to be forgotten because their name is written down in history.”
Hicks also encouraged the families to “have faith” in the military’s investigation.
Sapper Short’s nickname on base was “Shorty.”
“She was 4-foot-11, 90 to 95 pounds, and she was a combat engineer, so her job was big and heavy,” said Hicks.
“She was small in stature … but mighty, very mighty.”
Hicks says Sapper Short’s size was no deterrent to her decision to become a combat engineer.
“Her job was digging up mines, building bridges, driving LAVs, … knowing how to put a bridge together, carrying a bridge pin (weighs about 35 to 40 pounds) and she used to carry two.”
Hicks had spoken to her daughter just days before the training was to begin.
“She said, I’ve been looking forward to this (exercise) for weeks. And I said, OK, we’ll speak Friday when you’re all done with your exercise. And that was the last time I spoke with her.”
Hicks stands by her daughter Sapper Short’s grave in Trenton, Ont. (Mia Sheldon/CBC)
Sapper Short was a fourth-generation member of the military. Her grandfather and great grandfather served.
Her mother, Virginia Hicks, served 29 years in the Forces, becoming a sergeant, with deployments to the Persian Gulf, Golan Heights, Kabul, Kandahar and Italy.
Her stepfather Brian Hicks was also a construction engineer who served 30 years.
Still, Hicks was a little surprised when Short said she wanted to join the military shortly after graduating high school.
Sapper Mariebeth Short was killed during a LAV rollover on CFB Petawawa in 2002. (Submitted by Hicks Family)
“Mariebeth was quite a different kid … but she was a sweetheart,” Hicks said. Short went through a goth phase in high school, then tried working in retail and fruit picking before settling on a career in the military.
Short was sworn in January 2000, doing her CER training at CFB Gagetown in southwestern New Brunswick, before being posted at CFB Petawawa.
“She was proud as punch,” Hicks recalled. “She goes, this is where I want to be.”
But Hicks admits dealing with the grief of losing her daughter made her almost want to quit the service.
“We came very close to pulling the pin … after the accident. And it took us a couple of years, I think, to put ourselves together and say, OK, we’re gonna stay.”
Now, as Hicks prepares for this year’s Remembrance Day ceremony, she is remembering all those who have lost someone.
“For me, it’s a way of showing my pride to my country and to my daughter, for the sacrifices that she did for her own country.”
