LaSalle centenarian veteran reflects on WW II and current day conflicts

If you're from what is today called LaSalle and were born sometime between 1952 and 1985 there's a good chance you were one of the 2,000 or so babies 100-year-old Ralph Munholland delivered during his medical practice.

"I delivered six one day," said Munholland, now a resident at the Seasons Royal Oak Village in LaSalle. "It was the best practice in town."

Munholland said a car collision impaired his surgical hand, forcing him into an early retirement. 

Before he became a doctor, Munholland was an officer in the Canadian military and was involved with shipping munitions to the forces fighting in Europe. He served during the Second World War.

Munholland recalls the intense officer training he had to go through that also cost him some hearing loss. He was standing too close to a cannon during an exercise to see which team could get the cannon operational the fastest.

"I was in such a hurry. I hollered 'fire' for the first shot. I hadn't been far enough away from the barrel and it kind of burst my head," said Munholland.

In celebrating his 100th birthday this year Munholland, shares the occasion with the Remembrance Day poppy that also turns 100 years old. 

It is also the year the war ended in Afghanistan with the Taliban once again taking control. Munholland shared his views on that war, pointing the blame toward Afghan leaders and the military there.

"The Afghan leader and army just faded away," said Munholland, but adds the U.S. was too eager to get Osama bin Laden when they decided to go into Afghanistan."It was ego ... they were so anxious to get him they didn't think right."

Munholland laments that the current and future governments need to heed the warnings about the military industrial complex that former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke about in his farewell address in 1961.

"The industrial is bigger than the military, and they want to sell planes and tanks and trucks and everything they can.  So what I'd like to see them do would be for a government to just cut way back," said Munholland. "Eisenhower saw it and he called it and he warned but now, money talks and there's a lot of money to be made."

Munholland shares the apartment at the retirement home with his 103 year-old wife Melba.

It's the second marriage for both of them. They tied the knot 20 years ago when they were in their 80s.