Generations of Canadian veterans share their stories
4 veterans recall experiences from their time in the Canadian Armed Forces
All members of the Canadian Armed Forces are tasked with what could seem like a straightforward responsibility: defend our country, our interests and our values.
That one simple mandate, though, has manifested itself in many ways throughout the generations.
Veterans often have at least one interesting tale to tell, and if you poke just hard enough or at the right time, you might be lucky enough to have them share one of their their stories with you.
Four veterans in Manitoba shared their stories with us leading up to Remembrance Day on Wednesday.
Michael Czuboka: 'Missed out' on WW II
Michael Czuboka was just 14 years old when his older brother returned home from the Second World War.
His brother, Walter, had been a flying officer with the RCAF with 52 completed missions over the Atlantic and Europe. Czuboka said he was almost jealous of his brother for having the chance to fight in a war and serve his country so bravely.
Five years later, when then-prime minister Louis St. Laurent put the call out for volunteer soldiers to serve in Korea, he jumped at the chance.
Czuboka, who by then was an 18-year-old from Rivers, Man., took a train to Winnipeg and lied, saying he was the required minimum age of 19.
"They signed me up. They didn't ask for a birth certificate or nothing. They were just glad to get a warm body, I guess," said Czuboka in his Winnipeg apartment.
Czuboka served with the 2PPCLI in Korea and fought in the Battle of Kapyong in the spring of 1951. The historic battle was a result of a massive spring offensive from the Communist forces that massively outnumbered the coalition forces. The Canadians held their position against great odds and were awarded a U.S. Presidential Citation for their efforts.
Their battle field stories weren't exactly front page news back home, Czuboka said.
"When we came back from Korea, I think the general public was fed up with war," he said.
"Remember, we had the Second World War in 1939-1945 and then when the Korean [War] started, people weren't terribly happy. They said we didn't need any more war."
After Czuboka left the army, he parlayed his experience in the service with a little bit of help from Veterans Affairs Canada and obtained his BA and BEd from Brandon College (now Brandon University). He pursued a career in education and later wrote multiple books.
He is just about to release another novel, Manifest Destiny, which is based on real events surrounding the Korean War. It is set to hit bookshelves before Christmas.
Click the video player at the top of this story to watch Michael Czuboka share his experience.
'Halt or I'll shoot': Murdoch Jardine recalls experience in Cyprus
More than 25,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces have served on Cyprus, the little island in the Mediterranean. It's terrain that Murdoch Jardine knows well.
The 30-year veteran did three tours in Cyprus: 1966, 1969-1970, and a final tour with the Airborne as a member of the 2nd Commando unit of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.
"It's the principle of saving lives, or trying to save whatever culture you have in that area, with United Nations and all their agencies trying to do something. All the refugee camps, and all these things, you're still trying to help people and get people to stop killing each other," said Jardine.
Jardine first enlisted in 1963; it was something he always wanted to do. His father and brothers were military men and it was something he wanted as well. It was the outlet that he was looking for.
However, Jardine does admit that not all times were easy. He recalls a time in Cyprus when he was checking on a road block.
"I remember [a] guy going, 'Halt or I'll shoot.' So I went, 'Oh, OK' … as I looked down the muzzle of his rifle because it was pointed right at my head," he said.
"There was a speck of sand and I remember thinking, 'If I breathe, I'm going to get killed by a dirty rifle. That's not right.' The thought process is really off the wall."
Not all peacekeepers were so lucky. Twenty-eight Canadian peacekeepers lost their lives in Canada's efforts in Cyprus.
Click the video player below to watch Murdoch Jardine share his story.
Maj. Mike Legace: a world beyond the Perimeter
Maj. Mike Legace was 39 years old when he retired from the Winnipeg Police Service to go work full-time for the army. Legace had spent the previous nine years as an army reservist and decided it was time to take his service beyond city limits.
"I saw what Winnipeg had to offer as far as its challenges and what it needed in policing. But I grew up in a family of military. My dad was Canadian Forces as well and I was always very proud of that connection," he said.
Legace left behind one promising career to embark on another. He became a public affairs officer with 38 Brigade in Winnipeg and in 2000 went on a tour in Bosnia.
Bosnia hadn't been quite as volatile as it was when conflict first erupted there, but as Legace explained, tensions were still quite high.
"There was still that underbelly of people wanting to finish the job down there, i.e. the warring factions, the Bosnians and the Serbs and the Muslims and that whole dynamic," he said. "You always knew there was something that could explode at any time."
Legace admits that experiencing those events can sometimes come with a toll, though, and that soldiers who were reservists attached to regular force units could be at a higher risk of falling through the cracks.
Those soldiers, after coming home from tours, would get sent back to their reserve units, which he said didn't always have the same level of available resources as other bases.
"We've done a much better job now of catching them and making sure people are OK but back then, to me, that was a bigger issue…. When soldiers would come back from Bosnia and go back to their reserve units, you know, people would try to help, but the system wasn't there yet to help them as well as it is now," Legace said.
"You seen a lot of really good young men get lost in the cracks. That was the hardest part of this."
From mass graves and villages of orphans, Legace said he spent his tour trying to get the stories of the work that soldiers were doing there as peacekeepers — work that Canadians often hold in such high regard — out to the public.
"I'm so proud of the Canadian Forces and what they do, and being able to be a senior spokesperson for the Canadian Forces, it was my chance to open it up," he said.
Click the video player below to watch Maj. Mike Legace share his story.
Sgt. Tim Stackhouse: Tour made him appreciate Canada a little more
Sgt. Tim Stackhouse enlisted in the Canadian Forces at the age of 20, a year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The St. John's kid has spent the last 15-plus years as a medical technician in bases across Canada.
"It just seemed like the right thing for me to do was to join the military as a medical technician because I was always interested in helping people and I wanted to be helpful," said Stackhouse.
At this point in time, going on tours into war zones wasn't necessarily mandatory for soldiers.
"Going to a war zone — I guess to quote some of the older veterans that I've met throughout my life, 'If I didn't go, who would?'" he said.
With that notion in mind, Stackhouse embarked on a tour into Afghanistan in 2011. He served in the trauma facility in Kandahar and also went off-base several times with the force protection elements as well as the Canadian Combat Engineers.
This year, Stackhouse spent the day before Remembrance Day speaking to the students at J.R. Reid School in Brandon, Man., talking about his experience in Afghanistan and the importance of Remembrance Day.
"It actually, I think, made me appreciate more about the things I have — appreciate how lucky we really are here in Canada," he said.
"To be a veteran for me, personally, is an honor. We have so many great people, heroes who went on before us."
Stackhouse quotes from the poem In Flanders Fields and adds, "It's my generation's turn to carry that torch and it just means the world to me."
With files from the CBC's Holly Caruk