How should Canada commemorate our post-Korean War military efforts?
For many decades, the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War have understandably been a strong focus of our collective memory of Canada’s military efforts.
On 19 March 2021, we hosted a virtual panel featuring three Canadian Armed Forces Veterans exploring how to recognize and commemorate the Canadians who have served more recently.
Watch as Lieutenant-General (Ret’d) Lloyd Campbell, Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret’d) Chris Hutt and Sergeant (Ret’d) Geneviève Gauthier share their personal insights on how best to commemorate and recognize the contributions of all who served.
Transcript
Faith McIntyre
Good day and welcome to this virtual panel on the commemoration of Canada's military efforts since the end of the Korean War. I'm Faith McIntyre, the Director General of Communications with Veterans Affairs Canada, and pleased to be your moderator for today. I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land upon which I am located is unceded Mi'kmaq territory. As we are meeting virtually, I wish to acknowledge the peoples in the lands on which you are each gathered from coast to coast to coast.
Before I begin, I'd also like to acknowledge the courage of the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police veterans who have served and who continue to serve today.
I would like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence to honour the sacrifices of the many who have fallen in the service of their country.
Moment of silence
Faith McIntyre
We will now have the pleasure of hearing some opening remarks from the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence.
The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay
Thank you very much, Faith, and a pleasure to be here. Lieutenant-General Campbell, Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt, Sergeant Gauthier... and I want to thank you and everybody that joined us today.
Last November we talked with historians from the War Museum about how we should remember our post-Korean veterans. It was a great conversation, but what we didn't get was what the veterans' perspective was. We've all seen movies and documentaries or read books about Canada's long military history. From the trenches of Belgium to the beaches of Normandy there are stories... some stories we know much better than others, but what we know less is not less important.
There are hundreds of thousands of veterans out there; hundreds of thousands of veterans with stories worth telling and with stories worth commemorating, because from the moment someone puts on our uniform, they are part of our military history. Regardless of their rank, how long they've served, or where in the world their service took them, their story is our history.
As Canadians, it's our duty to recognize and pay tribute to our veterans, including the hundreds of thousands who wore the uniform since the Korean War.
There have been women and men, Indigenous people and immigrants who came here in search of a new beginning but decided to give back to their new home. Canadians from all walks of life who served this country with pride. They all have stories that deserve to be told and Canadians will want to hear. So, it's great today to have some veterans with us and to focus on how our modern-day veterans feel their service should be recognized.
Again, I really appreciate everyone being here and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Again, thank you very much and back to you, Faith.
Faith McIntyre
Thank you very much Minister MacAulay for being with us today and for your opening remarks. Certainly, this is a very important discussion as we shape the future of commemorations. So, indeed, this is Veterans Affairs latest installment in our new series of virtual panels on the future of commemoration. We would like to thank the Canadian War Museum for their kind support in these outreach initiatives.
For many decades, the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War have, of course, had a prominent place in the collective memory of Canadian military efforts.
But the contributions and sacrifices of Canadian service members most definitely did not come to an end after the war years. Our department will be undertaking consultations with veterans and other stakeholders to see how to best ensure that these more recent efforts become better known to all Canadians.
Today, we will be speaking with three Canadian Armed Forces veterans who served on a wide range of missions during their long careers, to find out how they feel contributions and sacrifices such as theirs should be remembered and celebrated.
So, let's meet our panelists: 78 years and over 680,000 hours. That is the cumulative service of these three esteemed panelists. I am honoured to be among them today and to devote a mere 60 minutes of my time to listen and to learn.
Lieutenant-General (retired) Lloyd Campbell served in the Air Force for 37 years. He was a fighter pilot and went on to hold a variety of senior command and staff positions, including Cold War service in Europe and with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, before retiring from the military in 2003 as Commander of the Canadian Air Force.
Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Hutt served in the Canadian Army for 25 years. He was an Armoured Officer with the Royal Canadian Dragoons and took part in missions to Bosnia and Afghanistan, as well as serving in other command and staff positions before completing his military career in 2017.
Retired Sergeant Geneviève Gauthier served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 16 years. She was a member of 5 Combat Engineer Regiment and deployed to Afghanistan where she was the Operations Sergeant for her squadron. Earlier in her career, she participated in a mission to the Central African Republic.
Thank you as well to those who submitted questions for our panelists. We have used the questions and added others to provide for an interesting discussion for our session today.
So, let's get started.
A major goal of a new commemorative approach to honour and recognize newer generations of veterans is to draw parallels between the efforts of Canadians who took part in the great conflicts of the 20th century and those who have served in more recent decades. We just heard a quick snapshot of our panelists' eventful military careers, but we would love to hear more about you and what you all did while you were in uniform, and then perhaps you could share some reflections on the connections you may see between the service of different era of veterans.
Lieutenant-General Campbell, we'll start with you. Please tell us a bit more about your military career and your personal thoughts on this question.
Lieutenant-General (Ret'd) Lloyd Campbell
First faux pas of Zoom is to make sure your mute is off, right?
Thanks very much and, you know, on the introduction, particularly all those years makes one start to feel a little old there, but I'll try to harken back in my first part here to when I was a much younger guy.
Of course, the Cold War was all about deterrents; trying to deter the very large and real threat of the Soviet Union at the time, and that meant keeping troops of Army, Navy, and Air Force in Europe that were at a pretty high state of readiness all the time.
I got to play my small part of that. First of all, at least in 1971 when I was posted to Baden-Soellingen as a young fighter pilot on CF-104s in the strike attack role. In NATO parlance, ‘strike' means nuclear, and so the first part of that was getting combat ready in that particular role, but we didn't fly with nuclear weapons for obvious reasons, so each of our bases had a Quick Reaction Alert area where there would be a certain number of airplanes fully loaded, ready to go, 24/7, 365 days a year; and as a young airplane driver, you got the opportunity two or three times a month to actually take command of one of those and spend 24 hours in the Quick Reaction Alert sitting queue, as we called it at the time.
And, well, you know, the expectation was that we certainly weren't ever going to be scrambled for real; there was no question, but it was kind of a foreboding and sobering experience to actually sit on alert with such a powerful weapon. Canada got out of that role in 1972, and from thereon in we were in the ground attack role with conventional weapons, so that would be against things like missile sites, and airfields, and armoured concentrations, and so on; and the missions were all pretty much standard, flown at a very low level in pretty marginal weather conditions a lot of times in Europe at speeds of 450 knots enroute and 540 knots in the target area. That translates to about 1,000 kilometers an hour which, as you can imagine then is a pretty exciting ride actually to be at. The sad part of that of course is that the environment was not very forgiving either, and so that mission was not without significant losses actually over the whole period of the 104.
I spent a total of 14 years of my career in Europe; the last four in the late 80s early 90s when it was exciting, but for a different reason of course, and that was the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany in 1990, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in '91. In fact, the whole world over there really turned quite upside down in a way that most didn't think it was ever going to. And that led to, of course, governments wanting to pick up on the peace dividend, and of course caused the Canadian government in this instance to close our remaining two bases in Europe; one of which I happened to be commanding at the time.
And so, that sort of marked the end of the Cold War. But as I'm sure my other co-panelists will vouch for, unlike this great era of peace and stability that people opined was going to happen at the time, things didn't quite turn out that way, and they'll talk about some of the events that they were involved in, but we have to remember even today, you know, since 2014, the Canadian government has had Forces – land, sea, and air -- posted on a rotational basis in Eastern Europe because the Russian threat has once more kind of shown up, and the need of deterrents is still there, so, as the old saying goes, plus ça change, plus c'est pareil.
And turning to your question, Faith, about the linkage between the generations of veterans, I think, first of all, it's important, as the Minister mentioned, to just talk about what an immense contribution and sacrifice was made by those who participated in the First World War -- over 620,000 Canadians served, 60,000 combat deaths. The Second World War we're talking over a million, and 45,000 deaths; a lot of those were airmen in the bombing op; and the population at that time was under 12 million people, so just about everybody in Canada either was involved themselves in the war or they were part of a family that was involved in the war.
So, I think there was a real understanding that existed. And my own father served overseas in the Royal Canadian Air Force for three years during that time, and while I was born after the war when he got home, I ended up being named after two of his squadron mates that were killed in operations in Europe, and so I've sort of had this personal reminder of their sacrifices for all of my life and my career as well.
I mentioned earlier my own experience – at the pointy end at least -- was the Cold War, but as commander later, I did get the opportunity to oversee things surrounding Bosnia and the Kosovo air campaign, the response to 9/11, the terrorist attacks, and then the start of the Afghanistan conflict as well, and I mention that only because it gave me a great opportunity as a leader to look at those who were at the front end at that time -- people like Chris and like Geneviève -- who demonstrated the same kind of perseverance and dedication to duty and, you know, it made me very, very proud as a leader, I must say, to see their... this generation of now veterans, but then frontliners in action, believe me.
So, to answer the question, my own sense is that there's a really strong and common bond that ties all of us together, you know. We've all had to show perseverance and dedication to duty; we all have had to experience losses in the service of our country, and so I think that the, as I said, this bond between veterans, past, present, and future, is something that's indelibly stamped in our DNA and it's going to preserve and stay for a long, long time.
Thank you.
Faith McIntyre
Thank you very much Lieutenant-General Campbell.
And certainly, I would hesitate to say you actually played a big part in the front, so to speak, on so many occasions and across many missions, and I would also note that you did so through some very critical moments in history.
I think it'll be interesting to see how your colleagues respond to this question. So, with that then, I'll turn to Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt.
You served in both Bosnia and Afghanistan, so tell us a little bit about your career, and what sense do you get from your comrades; do you think there is a hesitancy to consider yourselves as much as a veteran as those who may have fought 75 or a 100 years ago?
Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret'd) Chris Hutt
Thanks for that. So, I enrolled in 1992, so it was in the wake of the Cold War and right at the beginning of what I would say is an increased operational tempo for the peace support operations. So, after I enrolled, we sent forces over to Rwanda, Somalia, and the Balkans -- the opening days of the Balkans.
I showed up in Petawawa as a qualified armoured officer in 1996 and I was put in charge as a 23-year-old of 16 soldiers, of which I was the third youngest and most of them had out-stripped me in age and experience quite significantly, and in charge of four armoured cars. And within nine months of showing up in Petawawa, I was part of a major column that deployed from Petawawa and around the north shore of the Great Lakes to relieve Winnipeg during the Red River floods of '97.
A year after that I was deployed – or sorry, even less than a year after that, another nine months after that -- I was deployed to Bosnia for the first time, and in charge of 28 soldiers, including reservists and some of the first females within the combat arms, and in charge of seven armoured cars and deployed into a peace support operation there.
Over the years I spent… my career kept on going and I spent the majority of my time in the field force following a similar routine where I was either training for and deploying on operations or directly training people to go on operations themselves -- committed to that.
I would have to say that over that time and in the early years, there was a reluctance to acknowledge people of our generations as veterans ourselves; we didn't think of ourselves that way. It's a failing I think of people in the CAF that because we're around extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, to us it seems normal, and it's only in retrospect when you get a bit of distance from it, you start to realize some of the extraordinary things that you did and the extraordinary people you had the opportunity to serve with.
So, one of the things that I would say is, the linkages were always there, as General Campbell pointed out. I learned my craft and everything I know about leadership from NCOs and officers that served during the Cold War, and they taught me my job and what it was to be a leader, and they in turn had learned that from the Korean War vets and the World War II vets, and those linkages were even alive for people of my generation.
There's a trooper, retired Don Wood who was a driver of the second armoured car into Leeuwarden on April 15th in 1945, and we host him every year in Petawawa -- my old unit the Royal Canadian Dragoons. He shows up in recognition of that date, the Liberation of Leeuwarden, and tells stories and shares his experiences with us.
While I was a Lieutenant and a young Captain, Brigadier-General (retired) Radley-Walters who is Canada's tank ace, who'd fought his way through Normandy and the Falaise Gap and all the way through the Northwest Campaign and received honors from the Queen, lived just outside of Petawawa and we would host him for professional development. And, again, he would share his stories about tactics and leadership and his experiences from the war. So those linkages were very alive, as I know in the Army, and I'm sure it's the same with the Air Force and the Navy, where we have those linkages. And it's hard to put yourself in the same standing, if you will, as a veteran when you're experiencing the stories of those people.
I would say that actually started to change on the eve of Afghanistan and during the campaigns in Afghanistan because, all of a sudden, it became very evident that, not only with regards to peace support operations in the Cold War, that we were actually fighting in combat, and that reluctance to recognize yourself as a veteran and to recognize your peers and your brothers and sisters in arms as veterans sort of dissipated, if you will, and that reluctance sort of went away.
And I think, again, while you're still serving, you don't think of it as a big deal because it's just your job, and it's what everyone around you is doing, and so it's… the typical approach of a soldier is to treat it just sort of blasé, even though you're doing something really cool.
But with regards to, as you take that step away, I think that reluctance to call yourself a veteran and recognize that you are in fact a veteran has gone away, and that most of us do, once we do step away and begin our life after service, feel that we are veterans.
Faith McIntyre
Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt, thank you very much.
And certainly, it's akin to the common bond that we heard from Lieutenant-General Campbell and those linkages that you mentioned; and appreciated the firsthand stories of how you kept sort of all those pieces alive and continuing throughout history. I think that's critical.
Geneviève, Sergeant Gauthier, we'd like you to tell us about some of your experiences. We've heard from your colleagues that the more things change, the more they stay the same. What do you and your Afghanistan colleagues think you have in common with those who fought in the world wars?
Sergeant (Ret'd) Geneviève Gauthier
Hello. I'm very pleased to be here today to participate in this roundtable.
It's very important for me to be able to talk about our stories, our career, so that people know exactly what we went through to ... it's almost therapeutic for us veterans to be able to tell our stories. It does us good. I was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and I had to ... I had to do my research and my ... to participate in this roundtable. I had to sit down, think about my career, remember the wonderful memories, the wonderful things that I did, so it's a very nice opportunity today to be able to participate in this roundtable.
With regard to my career, I enlisted in the 1990s. I was one of the first women in the Combat Arms. At that time, it was more ... we had more of a peacekeeping role in the Canadian Armed Forces, so our training focused on peacekeeping. We trained with the ... it was more the ... almost the Cold War again, as my colleagues used to say, but by the ... the closer we got to the 2000s, the equipment, everything changed. We moved to a more war and combat-oriented environment, and the training became more and more intensive. We trained for years together to be able to go to Afghanistan. That was our goal.
So when I went to Afghanistan in 2007-2008, it was a fantastic, difficult adventure – also very difficult because we lost several people. We did ramp ceremonies in which the casket was carried by people we know, getting on the plane and going home. It was completely different from anything you might expect. You think you're ready for war or for battle, but when you get in there and you live it every day, you realize that it's not ... you're never ready enough.
But we also experienced incredible things with people ... we touched the people in Afghanistan. I remember a little girl who'd come to see me every day and I'd give her candy. One day she realized ... she said to my interpreter, “She's like my mother.” She never realized that I was a woman, every day I'd give her candy. I think we touched hearts, we touched people. What we did, we did with passion.
As for the connection between the soldiers of the past and the soldiers of today, I'd say that our soldiers have the same passion; it's a calling. We're not ... there's a famous song that says we don't do it for the money, or we do it because it's our ... it's what our heart wants to do. And that's why we train so hard, why we're willing to make sacrifices with our families, for all our years of training when we're always away. There were years when I wasn't on a mission, but I was always on a course, on an exercise, on my sergeant's course, on my LAV III course, crew commander. There are some ... it's quite a sacrifice we made, but it's because it's our passion.
Just like the doctors, the people on the front lines in the hospitals today with COVID. They're making a great sacrifice, but for us, that was our calling too, our ... that's what we wanted to do. So I think there's definitely a connection. War was different, certainly. There's no such thing as trench warfare anymore. It's more urban warfare or war with IEDs and things like that. But the passion, the professionalism of the soldiers to me is ... it's part of what ... of us, of what we wanted to do, and we're very proud of that.
Yes, we consider ourselves ... I consider myself a veteran. When someone says, “Thank you for your service,” I often get a little uncomfortable, but I'll tell you what – I bring my heels closer together and straighten my back, and it makes me happy, and it feels good. A lot of us veterans at home today ... like me, I' very far away from anything military. I got out 10 years ago. I don't have access to all my former colleagues, the ceremonies and so on, but when there are ceremonies like Remembrance Day and people come up to me and say thank you, it really makes me feel good. I think that's part of the healing process for us soldiers, to be recognized for our sacrifice and what we did.
That's all I have to say.
Faith McIntyre
Thank you very much, Sergeant Gauthier. And you should definitely be proud. You have a right to be proud. And also, we really appreciate you telling us your story, and we feel that it really comes from ... it really comes from the bottom of your heart.
You also talked about peacekeeping, and it's really peacekeeping that comes to mind for many people when they think of Canada's military efforts over the last 70 years, not counting Afghanistan.
So, Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt, you've taken part in peace support efforts. What do you think Canadians need to know about these kinds of missions, especially in exceptionally challenging places like the Balkans in the 1990s, and how do you think they should be commemorated and recognized?
Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret'd) Chris Hutt
Thank you. So, as I mentioned, I went to Bosnia for the first time as a young troop leader with an armoured reconnaissance squadron in 1998, so it was two years after the Dayton Accords had been signed, and I had the opportunity to go back again in 2003-2004, nine years after the Dayton Accords were signed. And it was… I saw a great deal of progress, but I want to backtrack a little bit, and just kind of put this in the context of the Bosnian picture.
So, in that first trip that I deployed with were soldiers that had been part of the UNPROFOR missions that were there under the UN mandate when the shooting was actually going on and the war was fully raging. There were also soldiers that had been there during the first, what is referred to as IFOR, which was the mission that went in to enforce the Dayton Accords and actually imposed peace, which included actually firing missiles at forces that weren't observing the ceasefire provisions, and some of them had been on both missions. And then we were about to deploy in 1998 as what's called SFOR, which is Stabilization Force, which was the ongoing maintenance of the Dayton Accords and to continue… to monitoring the situation, but in reality, had the appearance of being a very stable and permissive environment.
But the thing is, is each one of those realities of those tours was very, very different and… but at the same time, is they all had their challenges and they all had their risks, and at any point on the turn of a dime, they could change. And I'm going to throw out some anecdotes and some things to think about with regards to what I think people need to be aware of, because I think that there's a misperception or a bit of a myth about what peace support operations actually were within the Canadian public. And there's that vision that it is a UN mandate permissive environment, minimal threat, and that everyone will be safe. And in reality, it is far from that. That could be 90% of the tour but there will be days where things are terrible and that there are very real threats.
In 1993-94 under the UN mandate, Canada took part in the largest single combat action between the Korean War and when we actually did the Battle of Panjwai in Operation MEDUSA in Afghanistan, and that was the Medak Pocket, where there was a battalion that fought off an offensive from Croatian forces and actually was in combat action, and very few people in Canada are actually aware that occurred because it wasn't talked about.
Later on, in that same… not that exact same mission, but later on in that same era during the war years, members of my regiment were actually forcibly detained by the Serb army for a period of two to three weeks, and they were held as hostages by the Serbian army in order to prevent the UN Forces and NATO Forces from interfering with their operations. And, again, something that's not talked about or not known widely in the public.
In my own tour when I went there, it was largely a very permissive environment. The ceasefire was well in place and we were in a monitoring role. Most of my time was spent doing what was called framework operations, which is basically visibility patrols and just keeping… watching atmospherics and monitoring things going on. And we drove through areas that had been ethnically cleansed where there was, honest-to-god ghost towns, where everybody that used to live in these little villages was dead and buried somewhere in that local area. And if you actually took the time to look through windows, you'd see where there were dinner places that had still been set from two years before when the village got cleaned… or ethnically cleansed, I should say.
So, tense… and there was a mine threat and things we dealt with, but even in that permissive environment, in the course of one day the entire tour changed because one of the towns where there was… a Canadian contingent was located, a group of Croatian paramilitaries and ethnic Croats living in Bosnia decided that they were going to attempt to ethnically cleanse the Serbs that had been returning to the town, and they started to burn houses, burn the people out, and were attempting to actually round them up to actually murder them. And it was only the intervention of the Canadian Forces that were located there intervening to the point where there was warning shots fired and there was an escalation of force and it actually almost turned into armed combat, and it was very… a very close thing that we all became engaged in, that we actually saved the Serbian locals that were in there that were about to be ethnically cleansed.
And that was in 1998, two years after the war.
So… and I guess the last anecdote I'll share is that in 2003-2004, again the dynamic of the tour changed; again the peace accords were still largely in place; our focus had changed and we were actually following a lot through monitoring organized crime networks who were dealing in everything from weapons to human trafficking rings, and there were instances where our neighbouring contingents were finding dungeons of people that were being held against their will and moved into basic slavery for all intents and purposes. But at the same time, we were still finding the weapons of war that were actually being squirreled away and cached, ready for when we all turned away and for the war to start again. We were finding everything from small arms to, one day in a factory behind a false wall, two howitzers were discovered by the British contingent that were actually not just relics of the war, they were actively being maintained by someone and there was maintenance logs being kept with it. So, a very different reality and very different challenges, and at any moment that situation could have changed.
So, I think what people need to realize about peace support operations, where there is that myth or maybe that rosy-coloured view that people have of it, isn't necessarily the reality. And I think the way to recognize what people did on these peace support operations, be it Rwanda, Somalia, the Balkans, East Timor, any number of the places that we were, is that they need to recognize the realities of it. I call it the good, the bad and the ugly, because a lot of good was done, a lot of our folks were put into risk and put in harm's way, and sometimes there were failures.
It was mentioned earlier that there was a peace dividend, I would say that we never… we never saw that at the end of the Cold War because, if anything, the operational tempo went up -- very different than what it was in the Cold War -- but the operational tempo went up. But at the same time, because there was the perception that there was a peace dividend and these were peace support operations, that they didn't need to be equipped quite as well and that they didn't need to be invested in, so there was a bit of an illusion there.
So, I think people need to be aware of that: the realities of what peace support actually was and is, and the fact that it is not safe and that there are risks, and that even though it is a, quote/unquote “peace support operation,” very quickly it can turn into combat, and people within the Forces have to be prepared for that and everybody has to be aware of that.
Thanks.
Faith McIntyre
Well, I'll say now, thank you very much for that in really sharing the realities of the experiences of peacekeeping, which I think is an important part of the discussion in terms of the way forward for commemoration, while also important in educating all Canadians on the picture of what took place and what existed, as well as the examples in other areas that the Canadian Armed Forces were engaged over a number of years.
Sergeant Gauthier, to pursue the matter a little further, we certainly want to look at a new approach to commemorating the efforts of the Canadian Armed Forces abroad, as your colleague described just a minute ago. One idea might be to have theme years focusing on missions to different parts of the world. You were a veteran ... you are a veteran, I should say ... of missions to Africa and Afghanistan. What do you think?
Sergeant (Ret'd) Geneviève Gauthier
I think it's a really good idea. We need to tell our stories. We need to be remembered ... as I said earlier, to be recognized for what we did. It's part of our healing process as soldiers, as veterans. My children ... my young children have no idea what I did in the Canadian Armed Forces. One day, I went to a Remembrance Day ceremony with them, and I put on my beret, my hat, and my kids said, “Mom, you have a funny hat!” And they don't know.
So we have to commemorate. It will teach young people, so what we did must not be forgotten. As I say, we always think of the Second War, the First War, but our soldiers ... what we did, our contribution, is also important. It's a different war, but it's ... it's also important.
Another example: When I was with the kids ... when I went to the Remembrance Day ceremony with my kids, I went into the classrooms, and the children were able to ask me questions. One kid asked me if I served with his grandfather in the Second World War, and another child asked me, “But do you like war?” So the questions were so wonderful, and it was so touching to be able to talk to the kids. And the question about war really surprised me. I had to sit down for a second and think ... and the way I explained it to the child was that we soldiers are a bit like firemen or policemen. You can ask a policeman if he likes crooks; he probably doesn't like crooks, but he likes law enforcement. The fireman may not like fire, but he ... he does his job to put out fires. For soldiers, it's kind of the same thing. We're all parents, spouses, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and we have all these people behind us, and we do it for them. It's our job.
Commemoration with parades or ... it will help a lot to understand what we did, and it will take away the stigma that we veterans are at home, we're ... we're in a bad mood, we can't see anyone or ... making our veterans part of the community I think will help a lot, a lot. It could have very beneficial effects on us veterans and also on our children so that they don't lose that knowledge.
Faith McIntyre
Thank you very much, Sergeant Geneviève ... sorry, Sergeant Gauthier.
I can certainly see the importance of having concrete examples, of having the real experiences that the three of you have told us about today, and being able to answer difficult questions at times, but the questions also help in learning and in knowing about and remembering everything that you and your colleagues have experienced.
So, Lieutenant-General Campbell, we have spoken, and your colleagues have referenced the Cold War. You are a veteran of the Cold War. This struggle was a top priority for the Canadian military from the early 1950's to the early 90's, but the public is perhaps not as aware of it as they are of our peacekeeping missions. Both regular forces and reservists also performed many important roles here in Canada, and we've heard some of those described as well by your colleagues, from standard duties like patrolling our frontiers, search and rescue to helping out during national disasters.
So, what should Canada do to better recognize our country's Cold War contributions and how do you think other types of efforts can best be recognized?
Lieutenant-General (Ret'd) Lloyd Campbell
Thank you, Faith.
Let me start, first of all, by echoing something that Geneviève talked about and that's the importance of educating our youth. And, you know, it reminds me of a thing that just recently came to my mind… to my attention, and that's a school project, the school in Toronto, North York, actually did. It's an oral history program where they interviewed dozens and dozens of veterans and serving individuals in the Armed Forces today in person via Zoom, and so on. I think these are really quite fascinating stories that they were allowed to tell, and the… I think the thing about that is that this is really students educating themselves about the war and about all of the past conflicts that people have been involved in, including very modern ones, and I think that's something that we really need to encourage.
When it comes to memorials; I mean, it's hard to say, there are a lot of memorials around… to the Cold War, I'm thinking of things like the Canadian War Museum, the Canada Air and Space Museum, the Cold War Museum out in Calgary, there are museums on just about every one of our bases and wings around the country that are open to the public. And these things are extremely important to at least show in terms of equipment and artifacts and so on, really, what's going on.
As the Minister said, you know, there were a lot of people involved in this program that we called the Cold War, over 100,000 served in Germany over the years, not counting families, obviously. Hundreds of thousands more served back here in Canada, and as you mentioned in your question, those Regular Forces, we had Reservists, people are involved in not only defending our borders and our air space but carrying out search and rescue missions, and so on. And I can tell you from my experience with search and rescue people, you never get to do a search and rescue mission in nice weather in the broad light of day; search and rescues always seem to happen at nighttime and in very poor weather conditions. And they've been costly in terms of lives over the years as well, we can sadly… sadly say. And you know, while they often say that the Cold War wasn't a shooting war like some others have been, nevertheless about 1700 Canadians lost their lives in training and operations during that period, so it's not a small cost in human lives.
I think, in terms of remembrance though, one of the most important things that I've seen happen has already happened, and that was the creation of the Seventh Book of Remembrance. For those who don't know or may not recall much about the Books of Remembrance, there originally were three, essentially: The First World War… well, sorry six, but they included three campaigns; the First World War and Second World War and Korea. That was kind of a sad event in my view, and in the view of many others and, fortunately, it's through a lot of diligence and some effort on myself… by myself when I was commanding the Air Force, we managed to get approval to have what was called the Seventh Book of Remembrance.
And that book now has the names of some 1961 Canadians who died in operations like in Afghanistan, in the Cold War, in peacekeeping operations, and so on. These are… these books are kept on Parliament Hill, normally in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower, but right now because of construction ongoing, they're contained at the visiting center. But they're also online through Veterans Affairs Canada, and I really encourage all of us to take the time once in a while and just check in and look at them, because you can look up anybody who's a friend or a relative that you lost and see how their names is engraved in the book for memory, forever.
So, I think that's a very important thing.
The other way though that we need to, as Canadians, I think, remember our veterans is by looking after them. Geneviève mentioned her own challenges with PTSD; she's obviously not alone; I have a nephew who was also a combat engineer that suffers the same way. And there are… you know, when we look at that, we really need to start, like, looking after people… well, keep looking after… I don't want to make this sound like nothing has happened. In fact, I'm on the board at the Perley and Rideau Veterans' Health Centre here in Ottawa which has a lot of… was originally a lot of Cold War vets, sorry, of Second World War veterans. That number sadly is diminishing.
But the government, Veterans Affairs, recently started a pilot project, so we have 60 of our rooms are now dedicated to what are called other qualified veterans. These are mostly Cold War -- some perhaps might have come after that -- but mostly Cold War; people on a disability pension who need the kinds of services that long-term care provides, and it's been a very successful program, and we're very keen to see it become reality, not just a pilot, and expand its way across the country and even in larger size.
Along the same vein, and this one more aimed at I would say people of Chris's and Geneviève's era, is the creation of a 40-apartment block here in Ottawa called Veterans' House, which was a funded through largely charitable contributions, the Multifaith Housing Initiative and the City of Ottawa, Veterans Affairs played a role, the Legion, and others as well. And that will take 40… it'll be full by the end of this month they tell me, but it'll provide fully-equipped apartments for what hitherto would have been 40 homeless veterans.
And so those are the kinds of programs, I think, that really in a very concrete and tangible way commemorate the service of our people.
Thank you.
Faith McIntyre
Well, thank you, Lieutenant-General Campbell.
And many really concrete examples of what commemoration means and how you see that, from the educating of youth on the good, the bad, and the ugly – as your colleague said – to the importance of capturing the moments in the Books of Remembrance which, as you noted, are available to viewers on our Veterans Affairs Canada website as an initial place to go find out more about them.
And interesting too how you framed the importance of supports as being a way in which commemoration is critical, and we have to continue to do so.
I'd like to speak a bit more in terms of Afghanistan, and we heard that, you know, Afghanistan was really a bit of a turning point in the various missions, and what had taken place after, if you will, the more traditional war era.
So, Sergeant Gauthier, you were one of more than 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces personnel who served in Afghanistan, and that mission brought a great deal of public awareness to military achievement and sacrifice. And that included both the Regular Force and Reservists. A new national monument to honour your efforts for our country in Afghanistan is planned for 2024. What do you think of that? And how else do you think those efforts should be commemorated, not only for the Regular Force but also for the Reserves?
Sergeant (Ret'd) Geneviève Gauthier
I love the idea of having a monument to commemorate Afghanistan specifically. We had a very, very nice monument in Kandahar that was right next to my office, and I'd often go there to pay my respects when I was having a hard day or when I was in the camp in Kandahar, with a picture of all of the soldiers we lost, with a brief description. That monument is now in Ottawa, and I'm really happy to know that it has been put up, that it's available to be seen. But, no, I think it's important. If there was a monument, even for our veterans to be able to go and pay their respects, I'd make a special trip to Ottawa, where the monument is going to be, for sure. Even the current one from Kandahar, I'd like to go and see it. It's something I'm planning to do.
But, precisely, to gather ourselves, that's part of – again – advocating and healing for us. I talk a lot about healing, but it's really ... we're losing way too much. Just today, a week ago, I saw pictures in my news feed showing a very close friend of mine who lost his battle with PTSD, and every year, you see the same pictures. You get tired of it. It's important to us. Recognition for what we did is a really important part, I think, and monuments are the best example ... the best things that can happen with that
Faith McIntyre
Thank you very much Sergeant Gauthier, so certainly, many ways to recognize the service and the veterans, but as you indicated, the physical aspect of having a memorial is one of those aspects that helps not only with the aspect of touching, of being able to see and touch something, but also the aspect, as you said, of the complete healing of the individual eventually, hopefully.
I know that our time is certainly moving forward quite quickly this afternoon, so I would like to ask a last question to Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt. And you've all spoken about your families in some way, shape, or form, and I know that we've really only touched the tip of the iceberg on how your families have been engaged and supported you, and how commemoration certainly would be seen to be an important part for them.
So, Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt, you know… we know that people with a connection to military community remarked how you could not do what you did without the support and sacrifice from your families. We know that… you know, I know you personally, you have a wife, and you have twin daughters who take up a lot of your time, so certainly during your service, how did that impact them? And how do you think that kind of sacrifice could be recognized on the part of families?
Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret'd) Chris Hutt
Thanks for that, Faith.
It does. It actually... family is a big thing within the military because without the foundation of family, we couldn't do what we need to do. And they give up a lot, and there's… operations is one piece, and I'll give a personal anecdote. So, my future wife moved with me to Petawawa during one of my postings – away from all of her friends and family in a completely new environment. Nine months later, I deployed for seven months and left her there. She stayed with me and we ended up getting married, but again, that was asking a lot, to live in a strange place away from all her friends and family and her network of support while I went away. That was my first… or sorry, that was my second deployment to Bosnia.
A few years later, before having kids, I was actually given the good news and the bad news. The good news was I was promoted to Major; the bad news was I was deploying in less than 30 days to Afghanistan. When I went home to tell my wife, she looked at our unfinished kitchen and the house that we were in the midst of building and gave me a dirty look and walked into the bedroom. But then after that, she set up basically how she could support me and how I could support her, and then I deployed 30 days later and was gone for seven months again to Afghanistan.
And she is one of the strongest people I've ever met, and she did that; and she did that to support me and did it with flying colours. But that's only the tip of the iceberg – those deployments. They're… as Geneviève will know, and I'm sure General Campbell will know; whenever you're getting ready to go, the deployment is actually the short part of it. You're spending months and months on courses and in the field, and on exercise away from home. The actual cycle to go is actually 18 months long. 12 months of training – intense training – where you're gone for long periods of that time, and then the six-month deployment afterwards. So, that's a huge burden to bear. And those are… again, you're away from your family, not there to support them, not there to work through that.
And then there's postings. I was posted 25 times… or sorry, 12 times in 25 years. My wife, once she started taking part in that journey with me, went through six postings. My daughters, as you mentioned; thankfully they never had to live through where I was operationally deployed, but by the time they were in Grade Four, they were starting their fourth school.
So, all those things take a toll, and there's a degree of sacrifice, and I'm sure General Campbell and Sergeant Gauthier will both echo this because my story is not unique; it's a pattern that all of us would share and all of our colleagues would share… that we've all lived this experience on the sacrifices that the families make is incredible, and I think it does deserve to be noted. It needs to be noted in that awareness through the public, the supports that we offer the families, both from public and non-public sort of supports, and cultural supports. And I think there is scope for things to recognize it within the commemoration programs as well, and I think it's very important.
Thanks very much for the question.
Faith McIntyre
Well, no, and thank you for the response, and certainly I know your colleagues would love to weigh in, though I know that we are nearing the end of our time together, but I think your response has reinforced the need that families have to be an important part of this conversation as we look forward to this approach to commemoration and to the future.
And, certainly, the experience as a mother for Sergeant Gauthier, as a father, as a husband, as a wife, for Lieutenant-General Campbell as well, are part of the discussions to come.
But, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today.
I've learned a lot, and I know that you've shared, as I said earlier, from the bottom of your hearts, the experiences that you've shared, and really in the way that you'd like to be recognized for. It's important information that we continue to develop the approach, and it's really just the beginning of the discussions.
So I want to thank you, Lieutenant-General Campbell, Lieutenant-Colonel Hutt and Sergeant Gauthier, for generously sharing your interesting ideas and opinions with us today. You've given us a lot to think about.
I once read that a hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. You all proudly and bravely wore the Canadian flag on your uniforms for so many years while giving so much of yourselves. You are truly heroes, and my deepest gratitude for your service.
And to the veterans and everyone else watching this session online, if you'd like to share your own thoughts on how Canada should commemorate newer generations of service members, we do want to know. We will be commencing consultations shortly, but please register at letstalkveterans.ca, and let your voices be heard. I encourage our viewers as well to keep an eye open for our next Veterans Affairs Canada panel for further exploration of important themes surrounding remembrance in our country.
Stay tuned on all of our channels with Veterans Affairs Canada to find out more.
Thank you very much.
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