In the Korean War, 516 Canadians were killed and 1,558 were wounded. It was Canada's third-bloodiest conflict after World War I, which was the most severe, and World War II, which was number two.
This year, when the 60th anniversary of the war is being celebrated, we're not the vets we were 60 years ago. I'm 82 and I served in Korea in 1951, starting off at 19 years of age. We consider World War II vets who served in Korea to be very special, and believe it or not, in our battalion we had five Hong Kong veterans, who went through Hong Kong and then signed up for Korea. That's quite amazing when you think of it. I fortunately was invited to their “last hurrah”—if you want to call it that—and it was very interesting, because I was the only non-Kapyong veteran invited.
Many of us are not able to complete complex or even relatively simple tasks as effectively as we could a few years ago or decades ago. In fact, I find that it's very interesting to communicate with many of the veterans I deal with, because I've been with a unit in KVA and I have 50 subunits—I even have trouble figuring out where they all are—but it's getting more difficult all the time.
Many of the vets have lost their wives and/or companions, and that does make it bad.
I'll tell you what I think is a funny little story. A lot of people who have lost their wives or their girlfriends get a new girlfriend and they bring her to our meetings, and somebody says, “How come you picked a girl who isn't as good looking as your wife or your first girlfriend?” And he says, “She has her driver's licence.” We have reduced the number of our nighttime functions because of reduced driving ability. In British Columbia, you have to be very careful, because there seems to be a little thing going on now so that if you look old in your car, you're going to be stopped and checked.
I'm lucky to be the last president of Fourandex in Canada. Most of you have never heard of that. That was created in 1923, three years before the Legion was, and you had to have served in the trenches in World War I to belong to it. Then they went along and they allowed some navy to join it and some air force. Then they really got up—they even allowed about half a dozen Korean War veterans to belong to it.
I meet those people, and it's very interesting because the last unit is in Victoria—and they voted me to be their last president. That surprised me, and it's very interesting to learn what happens to people when they're in their nineties. In fact, some of them are 95 and 96, and they don't even bother trying to get benefits anymore, because of the struggle and their age. I think you might consider that sometimes, that when people get over 85 or so, a lot of them just say, “To hell with it,” and they probably don't make the ambitious try they would have made a few years before.
General health issues are a problem for Korean War veterans, very much so. Memory loss—believe it or not we used to be able to do everything and not have to write it down. Now we all carry what we call a brain book to keep track of all the different things that are on, such as to find this place this morning.
A lot of the veterans who served in Gagetown and in Vietnam, as I did, were sprayed with Agent Orange. I was sprayed four times in Gagetown in an Agent Orange area. What goes wrong? What is your ailment? It's very difficult to say what the problem is. I saw one of my doctors the other day and I'm in relatively good shape for an old guy. My doctor was quite frank. It really affects your kidneys. He said that I may not die for five or 10 years, but my kidneys are going to pack it in. He said I had some damage to my kidneys.
I'm not trying to make myself feel like a poor guy or anything. I'm trying to tell you what the Korean War veterans are suffering from. I happened to serve in 10 countries, but some served in more difficult postings and they're not well and they have problems. For example, part of my kidney deterioration is due to dehydration during my service in Korea and Ghana, West Africa. In Korea we didn't get water for days when we were on top of some of the mountains. It was good in the winter even if the snow was three-feet deep because you could drink the snow, but in the summer months it could be a real problem. We often drank water from the ditches of the rice paddies. What that did to us, I don't know.
I had malaria twice. Millions have died of malaria. I got malaria just after I returned from Korea, and when I was in Ghana I got my second bash of malaria. I point this out not to make you feel sorry for me. I say it again that sometimes Korean War veterans who served in many places, including Korea, had the old business of malaria. I don't think when we came back that they were too interested in what happened during the Korean War because it was only five years after World War II, and nothing was bigger than that.
Generally speaking, we Korean vets do not expect special consideration over other veterans who have served overseas, but age is a significant factor in our lives. We require more help, not less, and looking at all the veterans I know—I know more than the names I can remember—there's no question that they are of the age that they don't even bother if they know they have something serious and they know it was caused by their service. They are just of the age where they can't be bothered even applying because a lot of them are being turned down.
In conclusion, to demonstrate that veterans do not always get automatic recognition or benefit for their contribution, I have a couple of points to make. On my return from Korea in 1951 with one medal at that time, a World War II vet asked me what medal I was wearing. I said, “Korea”. He asked if they now gave medals for peacekeeping. That was this medal here. That was the only one we wore when we first came back. It was the only authorized medal.
When we in 2 PPCLI were awarded the United States presidential citation for the Battle of Kapyong in April 1951...and I have a postcard here that some of you might like to look at because it's a painting by a Korea veteran who didn't serve in Kapyong. It's the Kapyong picture. As a matter of fact, when I woke up after about 35 or 40 hours without sleep and I opened my eyes in my trench—it wasn't a trench, just a parapet built of rocks because it was a rock surface, so we couldn't dig—what's in that picture was the first thing I saw, an aircraft flying over because a lot of our companies had run out of ammunition, water, and food. That's enough about that.
By the way, I should mention we became the only unit awarded this recognition in Canadian history, this one right here. It was six years before we were authorized to wear this citation. I understood. I never felt bitter about it because World War II vets who were in charge—and I'm not against World War II vets—thought we shouldn't even get it because “nobody else has received it, why should you get it?” But we felt pretty proud because we were surrounded for about two days by 6,000 to 3,000 Chinese and we managed to hold them off. The most interesting thing there, just so I don't overstate it, was that the Chinese ran out of artillery shells and that's probably the only thing that saved us.
Anyway, that's my introduction. It's not the full 10 minutes. But I just wanted to make sure that you had a bit of understanding, and it may not even be what you wanted to hear.
Thank you very much.
