By Newell Durnbrooke
For more photos: https://www.richardlawrencephotography.ca/rlpgalleries/2024/bdb2024/
On Monday 27 May, Esprit de Corps Magazine hosted the 10th annual Breaking Down the Barricades awards reception to honour the Top Women in defence 2024. The cocktail party was at the Beechwood Memorial Center. Priority attendance was once again reserved for current winners, past winners and their invited guests. However, this year a large number of special guests were on hand to celebrate the incredible achievements of these women. Those guests included the Minister of Veterans Affairs, Senators, Members of Parliament, Senior military General Officers and Flag Officers, Ambassadors, military attaches and a number of defence industry CEO's. Guests were greeted by piper Glenn MacDonald and later piped into the Sacred Space for the formal presentations. Corporal Kristin Ranshaw sang the national anthem to kick off the short ceremony. Beechwood Director Nick McCarthy welcomed the attendees and did a stellar job as the Master of Ceremonies.
Publisher Scott Taylor made a brief address to explain how the Breaking Down the Barricades event evolved from a one-off magazine feature into a decade long annual recognition for outstanding women in the defence sector. As this year also marks the centennial anniversary of the RCAF a brief video walked everyone down that century long memory lane. Lt-Col (ret'd) Karen McCrimmon gave a very heartfelt introduction to the keynote speaker, MGen Jamie Speiser-Blanchet, deputy Commander of the RCAF. A past winner herself, Blanchet delivered a moving salute to her fellow winners. Lt-Gen Lise Bourgon did the honours of announcing the brief bios of this year's winners as they were presented their plaques. Publisher Taylor and MGen Speiser- Blanchet made the actual presentations. As has become tradition, Chinese whisky was distributed for the purpose of attendees toasting the current and past winners. On behalf of sponsor Sandstone Group, Elia Lopez did the first salute and for those hearty enough to take a second shot of the Chinese whisky, Harry Harsch of event sponsor Commissionaires gave the final round of toasts. Guests were then free to enjoy the international buffet dinner and host bar.
The publisher and staff at Esprit de Corps wish to thank the following sponsors and Embassies for making this reception a success.
