Years before he moved to Prince George to help establish the BC Cancer Centre for the North, Derk Grooten served two tours of Bosnia as part of the Dutch military’s peace enforcement effort.
Just 18 when he joined the army, Grooten saw the horrors of war through teenager eyes and it forever changed him.
Now 46, the married father of two teenagers is preparing for the third annual 11K Remembrance Day Run, an event he started in 2021 as his tribute to fallen soldiers.
At 2 a.m. Pacific Time Saturday, to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in France when the end of the First World War was declared and the Treaty of Versailles signed in Paris came into effect in 1918, Grooten and group of runners will begin their 11 kilometre run at the Prince George Aquatic Centre.
Grooten, a radiation therapist, arrived in Prince George with his family in March 2013, four months after the cancer centre opened at UHNBC. He’s participated in the city’s Remembrance Day ceremonies since 2014 but wanted a more personal challenge for younger veterans to commemorate the day.
“I want to keep doing the traditional Remembrance Day ceremonies here in town, but I was missing something. Being a younger veteran there should be something that puts a little more strain on the remembrance part,” said Grooten.
“We are doing this to honour the brave men and woman who made the ultimate sacrifice so we are able to have this run in a free country. With the current state of where we find our world in, that’s not something we should take for granted.”
Grooten’s six-month tours to Bosnia came at the end of 1996 and the end of 1997, after the Dayton Agreement ended the three-and-a-half-year war.
“The first one I was just 18, very young to be running around a country torn apart by war, trying to bring some peace to the people,” he said. “There was a lot of responsibility put on our shoulders. We saw some stuff I think a person in my age category should not be seeing at that point in time.
“Overall, I came away pretty good, I didn’t run into too much trauma but it was tough at some points.”
Grooten underwent ACL knee surgery in January and is still recovering but figures he will be able to finish the run without too much pain. His running background includes a couple marathons and he also finished the Prince George Iceman as a team and solo competitor.
The route for the run includes the cenotaph at Veterans Plaza at City Hall and also will take runners past the Prince George RCMP downtown detachment on Victoria Street and the Prince George Fire Rescue No. 1 hall on Massey Drive. The run finishes at the Aquatic Centre.
“It’s a group run, it’s not a race, there are no prizes to be won,” said Grooten.
The first year the run drew eight participants and that doubled to 16 runners last year who had to trudge through fresh snow. Grooten is hoping to double that again to 32.
There’s no snow in the forecast with a high of 8 C expected for Saturday, after an overnight low of 3 C.
