Canadian Vietnam Veterans

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Bill Murray
To more mundane things, I have a couple of questions.

1. What is a CD?
2. Karmen did you mean a monument to vets or dodgers?
3. Could someone do me the kindness to post a small pic of the three flags you keep going on about. This is all new to me.

On the bar I have on my back porch, I fly 5 small desktop size flags. They represent the country of my birth, China and the four other countries I have lived in, the US, Canada, Sweden and Peru.
The Canadian flag I have I got in roughly 1979 and it has a red Maple Leaf on a white panel flanked by two red panels. Is that the current one or the one before the current one?

Bill,

(1) The CD is 'Canadian Decoration', awarded for 12 years service whether in the regular forces or militia. For each subsequent 12 years service, a clasp is awarded, which signifies a subsequent award; as you can see, there are a few here who have put in a hell of a lot of time in uniform.

(2) There was a local movement on to create a permanent monument in Nelson, British Columbia to "honour" American draft dodgers who fled there to escape military service during the Viet Nam war. Thankfully, that idea was quashed.

(3) Up until 1922, the official flag of Canada was what is commonly referred to as the Union Jack, but more properly called the British Union Flag. In 1922, as a derivation of previous unofficial iterations, the Canadian Red Ensign was adopted, and flew alongside the Union Flag. As time went on, it became more significant in representing an independent Canada, although the Union Flag was also still flown. This 1922-pattern Red Ensign, a reproduction of which I sell (see my thread in the For Sale Forum for a picture) was the flag under which our people went to war in WW2. It was modified to be more politically correct in 1957, then replaced in the sixties by the current flag which you describe.

Does this help?