Thank you very much.
We are the Persian Gulf Veterans of Canada. There are approximately 5,000 of us. We are trying to get recognition for our wartime service during the Persian Gulf war. That was over 32 years ago. Until this day, we are still not recognized for the service during the actual war. The liberation of a country was what we helped in doing.
Nobody is really listening within the government. We're trying our best to get the recognition we deserve for that. Along with that there are different benefits, of course, and some of them are for families of members. It's just that nobody understands what a veteran goes through if you haven't really served outside the country.
You've got the former country of Yugoslavia. You've got Afghanistan. You've got the Persian Gulf and many other very dangerous missions that went on out there.
The recognition is not forthcoming in the proper way. Persian Gulf veterans are recognized as special duty area veterans, yet we served in a war. Korean War veterans were recognized as special duty area veterans at that time, and it took them 30 years to receive recognition for their war service.
Today we are hitting 32 years as of Wednesday of next week, and we still haven't been recognized for proper service. The only outfit in Canada that is actually recognizing us for our service is the Kuwaiti embassy. It recognizes us every year. It gives us these medals that are on this side for our service there, which we're not allowed to wear on our left side. If you understand military service, you'll understand that when you get a medal from a different country that recognizes you for your service and you can't wear it with your other medals, you'll know what that does to a lot of veterans mentally.
You wouldn't believe some of the stories I've heard from some of the veterans who served in the Persian Gulf and how not being recognized for what they actually did has affected them mentally. They have medical problems now just like everybody else, but many of them stem from their service in the Persian Gulf. We're not recognized for medical issues, such as Gulf War illness. Other countries recognize it; Canada doesn't recognize Gulf War illness. We've got veterans out there who are paying with their own money to go and get help in the United States.