As we reflect on the importance of Remembrance Day and the role the Canadian military has played in conflicts past and present the Free Press reached out Drayton Valley’s Lane Starling on for his thoughts on his life as an active member of Canada’s Armed Forces.
Fredrickson: How long have you served with the Canadian Military?
Starling: I joined the Military in 2003. I was 17 years old and still in high school. I Joined the Reserves (Part time) as a Field Artilleryman with 20 Field Regiment in Edmonton. I found out later, after he passed, that it was the same Regiment my grandfather Chester Vig served in during the Second World War.
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Fredrickson: What tours have you done?
Starling: In 2006 I fought in Afghanistan on a 155mm Howitzer crew. It was a “busy” 6 month tour. I took part in dismounted patrols through the mountains looking for Taliban, was once ambushed outside Khandahar City, and fought at the First Battle of Panjwai. There was a second local Drayton Valley resident, a good friend of mine, Keith Alexandrovitch who was with the infantry there at the same time.
Then in 2017 I was in Latvia as part of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence contingent. I was a Joint Terminal Attack Controller that time. Which is a fancy way of saying that I specialized in calling in airstrikes. That was a much calmer tour and it was great to see and work in that area of the world with all the different countries coming together to form one fighting unit.
Recently I made the switch from the Army over to the Air Force and became an officer. Now I work for NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense) at 22 Wing in North Bay, Ontario. Here I am an Air Battle Manager. Basically I’m Air Traffic Control for military operations. We “manage” air battles (dog fights), air-to-air refueling and conduct 9/11 type intercepts of suspicious and hijacked aircraft. We also track Santa.
Fredrickson: Why did you join the military?
Starling: As to why I joined? I can’t really say. It was more of a calling than anything else. From as early as I can remember I never really had a question as to doing something else. I’ve had other jobs, worked at the sawmill, and in the oilfield for a time however nothing really stuck. It wasn’t until I came back from Afghanistan that it solidified for me. I realized it was just what I was meant to do. In 2007 I went over to the Regular Force. Been here ever since.
Fredrickson: What does Remembrance Day mean to you?
Starling: When I was younger, Remembrance day wasn’t really a big deal. It wasn’t, truly. It seemed to me to be a faceless war, where someone would call off a list of names that I had absolutely no connection with. Coming from a small town in rural Alberta, I think we could count on one hand the number of living Vets we had in the community. My Grandfather never talked about the war, at least certainly not with me and I never knew any of the other vets. Everyone else would try to explain why it was important; however it all seemed very hollow and disconnected, far away and impersonal. Obviously that has changed. For me now Remembrance Day is very much a personal thing. For me it’s not about the wars and conflicts we have fought in, it’s about the people that I’ve met and have known along the way and their stories they have shared. The first house my wife and I purchased was from a Korean War vet, our neighbor served in Cyprus and Bosnia. I spent a month in South Korea with several Commonwealth War Vets and walked their old battlefield. Obviously my own stories and people I knew from the Afghan war have an impact, but most importantly it made everything relatable. All the stories, the history. For all the reasons people told me that Remembrance Day was important I now understood. Unfortunately I’m not sure that’s a meaning I can impart on anyone else. For me it was a very personal journey to get to my meaning of Remembrance Day. But if anyone ever wants to have a coffee and hear a story next time they see me around town, don’t hesitate to stop and ask me.
There are approximately 187 accidents in town each year within Town limits. That’s according to data from Drayton Valley Enforcement Services.
Cody Rossing, the Manager of Enforcement Services and Emergency Management for the Town, says data from 2016-2023 has helped map out intersections in the community that sees the highest number of collisions. The intersection at 50 Street North and Hwy 22 has had eight collisions, the highest in the community. The second highest number was at the intersection of 50 Street and 50 Avenue.
“Anything along Highway 22, the Town doesn’t have jurisdiction over, pertaining to road designs or changes,” says Rossing.
He says getting the data from the Province regarding collisions along Highway 22 is something they haven’t been able to do before. Now that they have the data they can start mapping out the high incident intersections and starting brainstorming ways they can address some of the problem areas. Rossing says those areas will have more focus from the community peace officers.
Rossing says they are trying to develop strategies on how to reduce collisions in the community on a whole, particularly those that result in fatalities.
“There’s different things we can use like engineering and controls,” says Rossing. “But for enforcement services, how are we strategically educating and enforcing in those areas?”
He says there are a number of factors that can contribute to collisions. Over the past eight years there have been 434 caused from unsafe speeds, 245 were intersection related, 163 that are weather related, 114 from road surface conditions, 51 involving animals, and 417 were from drivers performing improper actions.
With speed being the most prominent cause, enforcement services have been taking action to find out where speeding is most common and increasing patrols. The digital speed signs that were purchased with funds from the Community Safety Committee don’t have cameras on them, but they do record the speed and report that data back to enforcement services.
On March 6, officers intercepted a vehicle driving 102 km per hour in a 50 km zone.
“That vehicle was pulled over, a court summons was issued to the driver to compel them to court. If they don’t attend court a warrant will be issued for them,” says Rossing.
If they are found guilty, they could face a fine of up to $2,000 and/or a license suspension.
Rossing says anyone who is over the speed limit by more than 51 km per hour will face an automatic court summons.
This was not the only incident of speeding. On March 5, the digital speed signs picked up on a vehicle driving 111 km per hour in a 60 km per hour zone. They also pulled over a vehicle going 50 km per hour over the limit that same day.
“That is strictly within the Town of Drayton Valley boundaries,” says Rossing.
There are a number of reports enforcement services can get from the digital signs, including the amount of traffic on a road and the times that see the most traffic. Using this data, enforcement services can ensure they deploy units during the busiest times of the day to the areas where speeding is common.
Fredrickson: What challenges/opportunities have you faced during your career?
Starling: A lot of the challenges and the opportunities in my career were the same events. But not solely for me, and not the reasons you might think. My military career isn’t mine alone, it includes my family the entire time. Obviously Afghanistan was a challenge for me but it also left my wife alone as a single parent while I was gone. Our second son was born while I was in Panjwai and when I came home my oldest son (not yet two at the time) took a while to even remember who I was. One of the biggest challenges was the biggest opportunity. Moving away for the first time. It was hard. The Starling family is pretty rooted in Drayton Valley. It’s all my wife and I have ever known, and so to pack up and move to New Brunswick was a big challenge. Since then we have lived in four different provinces and each time my wife has had to restart her career or find a new job. My kids adjust to another new school and new friends. I’ve been gone a lot with work. In the last year, I’ve been gone nine months. My family has more or less become accustomed to me entering and exiting the family routine and picking up as we go. But on the same token, we have a really close knit family because of all that. When we move to someplace new, the first people we know are each other. My kids have lived on the east and west sides of Canada and everywhere in-between. They have seen and appreciated Canadian culture across the whole country. They have been introduced to different ideas and views that are important to different people across the country. We have lived in bilingual communities and my kids can now speak French because of it. Everyone has learned how to meet new people and friends. Whenever we have to move now, we see it as an opportunity instead of a challenge.
The funniest thing is though, no matter where we live in the country, whenever I hit the Thorsby bend on the way back to Drayton to visit, I get the weirdest nostalgic feeling of “I’m home.”
