Originally Posted by canadian citizen
Just to set the record straight.
The number of Canadians who served in the US military, during the period of the war in Viet Nam was made up of a huge number who were volunteers. The number of Canadians who were living in the US and who were drafted, was very small. My point is that the vast majority served as volunteers, not as " draftees. "
I can still remember a colour photo of a bunker at some forward operating base in Viet Nam , with the new Canadian red maple leaf flag ( adopted in 1965 ) flying on a radio transmission tower. I am sure the CO knew about and was OK with it being there.
Of the 112 male graduates of my 1964 high school senior year here in Toronto , 12 joined the US military mostly at the recruiting station at Buffalo , New York. Two died in action, 2 were badly wounded, and the rest survived . Some stayed in the US military, some stayed in the US, and some came back to live in Canada. All of them were forced to select a US city or town, as their "place of birth " to cover up their true citizenship as Canadians. That stayed on their DD214 for the duration of their service period.
One of the largest identifiable group of Canadians who served in the US military were the Aboriginals, who under the Jay Treaty, can feely move back and forth across the International boundary. The Mohawks, from eastern Ontario and Quebec were mostly Marines. The Stony Point reserve in Ontario has a active post of the American Legion, as so many of their people have US military service in their past.
The Canadian Army in WW2 was large enough to be fighting in two separate theatres, at the same time. In Italy, we started with the invasion of Sicily in August of 1943, and we were still there in January of 1945, which totals about 17 months of action. We also took part in the D Day landing in June of 1944, at our beach JUNO. Eleven months later, we were across the Rhine, and poised for the final push to Berlin. Along the way we fought in France, Belgium, The Netherlands ( some of the most difficult combat of the entire war ) and into Germany.
The guys of the First Canadian Infantry Division in Italy said they were "playing in the Spaghetti league " a reference to the lack of interest by the media , and the idea of being in bush league hockey back in Canada. The truth is that they were fighting the very best that the German army had , and every river crossing ( Italy has seven of them ) was a massive battle. Italy does not get that cold in winter, but the rainy season goes on for months, creating mud of epic proportions.
The Canadians in Italy suffered a total of 26,000 casualties, dead, wounded and captured.
The entire casualty list for WW2 for Canada, was .....37,000 dead. 98,000 wounded. The percentage of the adult male population of Canada in 1939 was about 5 million men, out of a total population of 9 million people. Assuming that there will be those that are too old, or too young to serve......The fact that we were able to put one million , one hundred thousand men in uniform, and send 900 thousand of them overseas, is a tremendous accomplishment. That works out to just over 40 percent of the available pool of volunteers .
Lest we forget.
Jim B.
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