Army and Wars Related Directory

During the 1991 Gulf War, Canada deployed sea, land, and air forces to the Persian-Gulf region as part of the Coalition forces against Saddam Hussein. About 4,500 Canadians served in the theatre, and no one reported any serious casualties at the time.

However, since then, there has been a series of complaints by some Gulf-War veterans about their overall health. Gulf-War veterans from several other Coalition nations (most notably the United States and the United Kingdom) have also reported that they were experiencing symptoms and illnesses that they believed were caused by, or aggravated by, their service in the war.

In 1992, the medical services in the various countries began to realize that the Gulf-War veterans seemed to be displaying some common symptoms, and the issue gained a higher profile. The first studies of the alleged Gulf-War Syndrome began at about that time.

In September 1992, the Canadian Forces Medical Service (CFMS) advised Canadian Forces medical personnel to exercise vigilance and to notify Headquarters if any Canadian cases appeared. Specialists at the National Defence Medical Centre (NDMC) in Ottawa soon began treating a small number of symptomatic Gulf-War veterans. Centre staff readily diagnosed some specific problems, but some individuals complained of a variety of ailments which, although easily identified as illnesses, were not clearly connected with the Gulf War. In fact, they occur among other Canadian Forces members who did not serve in the Persian Gulf, and also among members of the general Canadian population.

Continue Reading »

Posted by admin in Canada Wars, Gulf War • Comments (1)

Public Information Sheets

Canadians contributed in many ways to our country’s great efforts in the Second World War.

Second World War Historica Minutes

The Historica Minutes are one-minute movies that portray exciting and important stories from Canada’s past.

Canada and the Second World War

The Second World War lasted six terrible years and left a legacy of death and destruction. It was truly a world war encircling the globe from the Atlantic to the pacific and touching the far reaches of the Arctic.

The Battle of the Atlantic

What a miserable, rotten hopeless life . . . an Atlantic so rough it seems impossible that we can continue to take this unending pounding and still remain in one piece.

The British Commonwealth Air Training plan

In 1939, prime Minister Mackenzie King had a dream which he believed was a sign of “the power of the airplane in determining ultimate victory” for the war effort.

The Battle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence

The Battle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which saw German U-boats penetrate the Cabot Strait and the Strait of Belle Isle to sink 23 ships between 1942 and 1944, marked the only time since the War of 1812 that enemy warships inflicted death within Canada’s territorial waters.

Continue Reading »