Welcome to the Memory Project
Stories of Service and Sacrifice
Lucien Dion
Army • Home Town: Ste. Thérèse, Quebec
With my own eyes, I saw Dextraze pat someone on the back. He was patting the backs of his men to encourage them. [...] When he passed away (in 1993) and his funeral was held in Ottawa, I was there.
Donald “Bud” MacLeod
Army • Home Town: Vancouver, British Columbia
He had no sooner said that when a sniper’s bullet crossed my left shoulder and struck my platoon runner Private Oliver killing him instantly.
Francis Bayne
Army Listen Audio Interview
Don Leier
Army Listen Audio Interview
Doug Raynbird
Army Listen Audio Interview
Raphael “Ralph” Dael
Army Listen Audio Interview
Aimé Michaud
Army • Home Town: Quebec City, Quebec
I said to myself, “Aimé Michaud, you’re a soldier! Forget about the past.” Then it hit me; I had left my parents and my friends behind. I thought, “Now I have a job to do. I am a Van Doo.”
Art Baker
Army • Home Town: Montreal, Quebec
So it was the Chinese army that was in front of us and we were, what, 300 or 400 yards from them and we had our black night glasses and we watched them for 90 days.
Jack Neilson
Army • Home Town: Ontario
Our mandate was to prevent civil war, arrange a cease fire and halt all military operations. Prior to this was the apprehension and detention of all foreign military and para-military personnel not under UN command. And it was specifically related to mercenaries. Use of force was authorized.
Ron Myers
Air Force • Home Town: Saskatchewan
Our commitment was to do observations along the ADL, which spread from the Mediterranean down to the Gulf of Aqaba - the tip of the Sinai Peninsula -re-supplying Army and UN outposts along the ADL by air.
Don McLean
Army Listen Audio Interview
George Myatte
Army Listen Audio Interview
Susan Beharriell
Air Force Listen Audio Interview
Shannon Matechuk
Army Listen Audio Interview
Wayne Marshall
Army • Home Town: Ontario
I joined the Army in the fall of 1952, and went into a new apprentice soldier programme for boys that were sixteen years old. It was part of the regular Army. I served on continuously from then right up until just before I was fifty-six years old, giving me almost forty years of regular service.
Gerry O'Pray
Army • Home Town: Ontario
A lot of things happened while I was in the Congo. One of the things I remember was kind of a culture shock for me, as a young man coming from Nova Scotia. There were thirty-four different countries, I think, in that mission in the Congo.
Thomas Marion
Army • Home Town: Quebec
Later in the night when they were back at their start point, they could hear soldiers shouting, "Help, 73rd! Help, 73rd!" They were all tied up in the wire and the 73rd couldn't get to them.
Sid Meltzer
Army Listen Audio Interview
John Laurie Paterson
Army Listen Audio Interview
Joseph Mulvaney
Army Listen Audio Interview
George Scherer
Army Listen Audio Interview
Wilfrid Millen
Army • Home Town: Ontario
On August 8, 1918 near Cayeux (en-Santerre) about twelve miles southeast of Amiens he was wounded in the left shoulder and back. He died of his wounds on August 10, 1918 on 10 Ambulance Train en route to a Rouen hospital.
John Frederick Mould
Army • Home Town: Ontario
He received a very small pension, for he became deaf, caused by the shells, and he also suffered from gas poisoning. When he came home I guess he had trench mouth and he had to have his teeth pulled out.
Alexander Hunter
Air Force • Home Town: Clydebank, United Kingdom
I saw him when he went... after he had done his first operations - they’d gone down on the target, there was anti-aircraft guns there apparently aplenty, and it was kind of a rough show. So we had lunch together and he was talking about how hot this anti-aircraft fire was - he went on a trip in the afternoon. That was two trips and he didn’t come back from the second one.
Grace Breau-Theriault
Army • Home Town: Beaconsfield, Quebec
We were a casualty clearing station on D Day. So we had boys back from the battlefield the same day.
Georges Belanger
Merchant Navy Listen Audio Interview
Douglas Warren
Air Force Listen Audio Interview
Fernand Léveillée
Navy Listen Audio Interview
Robert “Bob” Dark
Navy Listen Audio Interview
Charles “Chic” Goodman
Army • Home Town: Saint John, New Brunswick
We said, Jerry is going to catch hell now and we got the news on the radio; the invasion had started.
Joseph “Joe” Friedman
Air Force • Home Town: Montreal, Quebec
There was a lot of targets but both sides were doing cruel things. There’s nothing sweet or easy about war and there’s nobody fighting clean wars anymore.
