The Elrose composite school gymnasium was full of music, emotion, honour, and a captive audience to see Clifford R. MacDonald receive France's highest national award. 
The Legion of Honor award, equivalent to the Order of Canada was bestowed upon 93 year old Clifford Rae Macdonald on April 10. French consulate to Saskatoon, Vince Martin had the privilege of handing over the award.
 
MacDonald took up the cause in 1941 when he joined the 67th Light Anti Battery in Rosetown. Overseas, they dug in a guarded various airports in England from enemy aircraft and rockets.
 

Macdonald landed on Juno Beach in July 1944 with the 4th Division. They took heavy casualties near Caen. He was with the 101 Battery of the 8th LAA as they moved through the Falaise Gap, and later with the 5th Anti-tank Regiment as they advanced through the Somme.

After France, the 5th went on to Antwerp, the Leopold Canal, Tilburg, and Bergen Op Zoom,They were the first troops to take Bergen Op Zoom. The liberation of the inland port of Antwerp was crucial to the allied victory.

As they advanced, MacDonald became a machine gunner until the end of the war. They reverted to Infantry and took over patrol duty along the Maas River from Lith to Wild, patrolling at night, usually short-handed.  

Patrols were supposed to have five men, but Bill Rutledge and MacDonald would volunteer to go out alone. This worked best anyway, Cliff says, as with just the two of them they were able to get close enough to hear the Germans talking.They would then slip back to their lines with information about location and numbers.

In 1945 they took Cleve, Even, and then Lousendorf through the Hoch Wald Forest, Wught. They ended up at Driebergen, near Oldenberg, Germany when the ceasefire came through.

Recent ruling in the French government has stated that all living members of those allied forces shall receive such honor, putting MacDonald in the company of Jim McCulloch and others who got the award in Kindersley last year.