Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406190018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: New York Times
DATELINE: TORONTO LENGTH: Medium
Some 20,000 American draft dodgers and 12,000 deserters are estimated to have fled to Canada, while 40,000 Canadians, the majority of them volunteers, served in the U.S. armed forces, and at least 12,000 fought in Southeast Asia.
Most went for adventure. Many from Quebec and French-speaking parts of New Brunswick say they signed up chiefly to learn English. Some were drafted, young men who happened to be living and working in the United States and as residents were subject to conscription.
Some call these Canadians the unknown warriors, men who for years have not called attention to themselves because of the war's unpopularity. Now they are seeking some national recognition, in the form of a memorial to their dead on a few square feet of federal land in Ottawa. But the Canadian government will not give them the land.
"We're not trying to say the war was right or wrong," said Lee Hitchins, president of the Canadian Vietnam Veterans Coalition. "We just want to put up something for the people who gave their lives."
The government's reason for saying "no" is that Canada did not officially take part in the war and does not memorialize people who fought in wars in which it was not a participant.
"The people who chose to participate did so on their own," said Marie Christine Lilkoff, spokeswoman for Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
But that may not be the end of the story. Early this month, Canada's Senate authorized a memorial and called on the House of Commons to unite with it and urge the government to provide the federal land.
"It's time to accept that Canadian Vietnam War veterans are a part of our history," said Sen. Jack Marshall, a Conservative from western Newfoundland. "They cannot and should not be ignored or forgotten any longer."
Marshall, a World War II veteran, was the prime mover behind the resolution, which was supported by many veteran groups in Canada.
Hitchins, a 49-year-old mobile-home industry executive, joined the U.S. Navy in 1963 at age 18. He enlisted with two buddies in Buffalo - "we were young and wanted to see the world" - and ended up as an electrician on the destroyer Charles S. Sperry in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin.
He estimates that about 40 percent of the Canadian veterans were draftees. U.S. draft laws at the time applied to Canadians and other aliens, who between the ages of 18 and 26 had to register within six months of their entry into the United States.
Fred Gaffen, senior historian at the Canadian War Museum, said a "couple of thousand" young men returned to Canada to avoid being called up. But he noted that "most who were drafted served."
The Canadian veterans are eligible for most of the U.S. benefits available to U.S. veterans, including treatment for exposure to Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant thought to be responsible for cancerous tumors and other severe medical complications experienced by some who served in Vietnam.
The 58,132 names engraved in the black granite of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington include Canadians, but just how many is still open to question.
The current official count is 113 Canadians killed, including 7 missing in action who are presumed dead. The Vietnam veterans group, which is now going through a painstaking check of all the names on the memorial in Washington, believes that it will find as many as 400 born in Canada.
by CNB