Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the focus of the recipient of the 2020 Royal Canadian Legion Masters Scholarship in Veteran Health Research.  “Traumatic brain injury was a significant injury in both Iraq and Afghanistan war zones and is a leading cause of mortality in Canada for people under 40 years of age,” said Abdelhakim Khellaf during the online presentation of the award on Jan. 27.  Knowing the severity and type of injury are important. The award is usually presented at the annual forum of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, which was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic.  Khellaf, of the University of Toronto, will focus on the development of a new classification system for TBI.  For more than a decade, international researchers have been ref...

This summer, dozens of Canadians will walk up and down the stone-lined avenues of cemeteries across the country, searching for veterans’ unmarked graves.  The Last Post Fund hopes these first patrols of the new Lost Veterans Initiative will grow into an army of volunteers. “Our pledge is that no veteran shall go without a headstone,” said retired Colonel Randy Brooks, the fund’s vice president for Western Canada, and lead of the program.  In the past 25 years, the graves of more than 6,000 veterans have been provided with a headstone or foot marker under the Unmarked Grave Program, funded by Veterans Affairs Canada and administered by the Last Post Fund.  But there could be tens of thousands of lost veterans yet to be identified. Brooks estimates there could be as many as 2,000 in Sask...

Help choose the cover for our next issue of Canada’s Ultimate Story. Cast your vote, give us your opinion and share with your friends on social media! In the final five weeks of the First World War, Canadian soldiers liberated more than 200 cities, towns and villages in France. “They were so glad to see us,” said one Canadian soldier, “they wept with joy.” To find out more about how Canada’s fighting forces freed thousands from oppression, pick up a copy of “Canada and the Great War of Liberation” on newsstands across Canada starting August 1. Loading…

London, Ont., announced on Feb. 16 that it has functionally eradicated veteran homelessness within its boundaries.     The municipality partnered with Built for Zero Canada (BFZ-C), a national effort by the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness to address the problem in London. BFZ-C monitors the progress of 12 participating cities. It has endorsed London’s claim that the city is the first Canadian community to attain “functional zero veteran homelessness” status. The term means the number of veterans experiencing homelessness is less than, or equal to, the number of veterans a community has proven it can house in a month. In July 2020, the city completed a “by-name list” of every known homeless veteran in the community. Using the list of 20 names and through relationships with organiza...

While Allied troops were fighting to secure the Normandy beachhead on June 9, 1944, Canadian air and naval forces helped destroy what was left of the German surface fleet By June 1944, Hitler’s Kriegsmarine was a shadow of its former self.  Its mighty battleships had all been sunk or bottled-up in distant ports and the U-boat fleet, once so menacing to Allied communications, had been reduced to a mere nuisance by overwhelming air and naval superiority. But the Kriegsmarine was a proud service, and as soon as it learned of the Normandy landings, it threw what resources it had left into the fray.  On the morning of June 6, as Allied troops were pouring ashore in northern France, German Admiral Theodor Krancke ordered the three destroyers of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla, the most powerful ...