Lloyd Gates, who will turn 100 on Nov. 20, is one of the few surviving Second World War veterans on Prince Edward Island.
Gates served as a radio telegraph operator in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943 to 1945, then helped the military tidy up in Europe for 10 months after that. Upon returning home, he joined the reserves for 12 years.
He still dreams about the war every night, even though it’s been over for almost 80 years.
“Oh every night it comes back, when you sleep,” Gates said during an interview with CBC News from the tidy apartment he shares with his wife Mary in Charlottetown. “Can’t do anything about it, I guess… not nightmares, but it all comes back.”
Gates doesn’t make a big deal of the PTSD he still suffers, or the pain of the past, but neither does he forget.
His brother Bob, also …