• Canada had an all volunteer fighting force, there was conscription but no draftee (zombie) fought on the front lines
• At the end of the war Canada was top five for size of army, navy and air force with the world's largest corvette fleet
• The modern techniques of FIBUA (fighting in built up areas - urban warfare) were developed by Canadian troops of the 1st Division at Ortona Italy.  The canucks figured that trying to attack through the door was a bad idea since usually there are windows beside the doors.  Windows mean the enemy can fire upon you.  The Canadians would make their own door by blowing a hole through an outside wall and assualting through it.  Once inside, to assualt an attached building they would then blow a hole through the inside wall.
• Canadians beat Americans to Rome, but had to sit and watch US troops march in victorious for political reasons.
• D Day - Juno Beach - a Canadian unit, the 1st Hussars, were the only Allied unit to reach its objective on time
• Canada's population was only around 10 million, yet 1.1 million Canadians served and over 40,000 soldiers, airman, sailors and merchant marines died.

First World War

• The method of assaulting an enemy postion know as a section attack ( a leap frog type movement, one fires and covers while the other moves, then they switch) was developed by Canadians.  The Canucks got tired of standing straight up out of a trench and running headlong into a new fangled invention called the machine gun
• Vimy Ridge - the first time Canadian troops fought as Canadians under Canadian command.  The British and French had failed to take the ridge, the French losing 150,000 men in the attempt.  At this battle Canadians perfected the rolling barrage, and employed a practise that is now standard - rehearsal of the assualt.  The battle cost over 3500 Canadian lives with 7000 wounded while the Germans suffered 20,000 casualties and 4000 POWs. It is said that upon learning of the victory, a French soldier replied, "C'est impossible!" ("It's impossible!"), and upon learning it was the Canadians who won, changed his answer to "Ah! les Canadiens! C'est possible!" ("Ah! The Canadians! It is possible!").
• Canadian soldiers initiated the first trench raids

Whatever your politics, thorw them out the window for Rememberance Day.  It doesn't matter if you believe in troops in Afghanistan, or on ohter Nato or UN missions.  The fact is soldiers have the courage to put on the uniform and wear our flag.  How many Canadians would be willing to live for weeks in the boonies with no shower, little food, little sleep pushing their bodies to the extreme?  And that is just the training.  Try it when someone is aiming to kill you.  Maybe after November 11 I will talk about my views on the politics of Afghanistan but until then...Lest we forget.

Ii was doing some research and came across this quote from an American soldier's letter back home:

"We are not nearly as anxious to fight these people as some of people may think we are, and we do not enter any of the fights with the same spirit we did when fighting the Spaniards. If a vote was taken to take us home now or wait six months and discharge us here with our travel pay and finals, which would amount to nearly five hundred dollars, I do not believe that ten percent would be willing to stay, so you see how the men look at this addition to the United States" (letter)

Sounds familiar eh? Can you guess which war he was fighting in? What year it was written?

The year was around 1898 from a soldier fighting in the Philipines during the Philipine Insurrection (US) or the Philipine-American War (Filipino). This war is considered the first "Imperialist" or Colonial war the Amricans fought. The casualties were high - 4,234 American dead, and over 20,000 Filipino troops killed and an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Filipino civilians killed. (historyguy.com)

many Americans opposed the annexation of the Philipines, but merchants and missionaries were for the idea. The whole thing came about after the Spanish-American War. Spain was forced to recognize the independence of Cuba, cede Guam and they received $20 million from America for the Philipines. But no one asked the Filipinos what they wanted. And how is this for pre-Orwellian Newspeak - President McKinley called the proclamation the "Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation".

Here is an excerpt from another letter, written by Captain Elliot of the Kansas Regiment:

"Talk about war being “hell,” this war beats the hottest estimate ever made of that locality. Caloocan was supposed to contain seventeen thousand inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native. Of the buildings, the battered walls of the great church and dismal prison alone remain. The village of Maypaja, where our first fight occurred on the night of the fourth, had five thousand people on that day—now not one stone remains upon top of another. You can only faintly imagine this terrible scene of desolation. War is worse than hell." Filipino-Americans.com

Brutality existed on both sides, the Americans simply had superior firepower.

Although this did not occur on the North American continent, it can be seen as an extension of wikipedia or pbs.org for more info.

Here is a list of the sites I went to:

www.historyguy.com

www.filipino-americans.com

www.pbs.org

en.wikipedia.org

I know, once again it isn't MLA or APA, but it's a blog, not a thesis. If it were a paper, it would be just a little more polished.