Our History
The Canadian Vietnam Veterans Quebec was legally incorporated on April 3rd 1989. Its main objective was to erect a Monument for Canadians who served and those who died in Vietnam.
The first Welcome Parade for the Canadian Vietnam Veterans was held in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle , Quebec in 1988 close to the Canadian-American border. Over two hundred people participate to this parade; American Vietnam Veterans and their surroundings honour twenty-five Canadian Vietnam Veterans from Quebec and Ontario.
A local Canadian Legion chapter takes part in the parade bringing Canadian Vietnam Veterans their support and their encouragement to the erection of a Monument.
A U.S. Army regiment from Fort Drum , N.Y. along with a U.S. Air Force honour guard from Plattsburgh, N.Y. take part in the parade. Mrs Violet (Pannozzani) Parker, Director of Foreign Affairs Operations, also attends the parade as the Canadian Veteran Affairs Minister.
The City of St-Bernard-de-Lacolle gives its main Street the following new name "le Chemin des Vétérans" in honour of the Vietnam Veterans. Unfortunately, the Monument is not erected in this city but in the city of Côte Sainte-Catherine . Less than six months after the erection of the Monument, the city of St-Bernard-de-Lacolle gives back the main Street its original name.
The Canadian Vietnam Veterans Quebec is registered as a non-lucrative organization with the Quebec Lottery Commission. The Association holds a raffle as a fund-raising campaign. Some problems and unexpected expenses bring the Association with a debt of 8000$.
Gilles Sauvé, V.-P. sells Jacques Gendron the idea to sign for a loan for a motorcycle, a Harley Davidson, in order to finance and pay their debts. The first year, the AVVQ collects 33 000$ for the Harley Davidson lottery, what they have continued to do since.
In October 1989, at Côte Sainte-Catherine, the Memorial Monument inscribes the following: "Dedicated to those who served, those who died and those who are missing in action".
Five years later, the municipal council of the city of Côte Sainte-Catherine advises the CVVQ that their monument has to be transferred to another site because of the expansion of their city hall. The CVVQ finally finds a new resting place for the Monument, which is located in Melocheville Quebec.
The new site needs considerable digging for laying the foundation of its Monument. Through summer weekends, the CVVQ members and its volunteers dig into five tons of rock, level 400 tons of earth, seed grass, install masonry and erect a concrete base for the monument.
On October 15th 1994, the new site for the monument of the CVVQ in Melocheville Quebec is now ready for its new rededication. Close to 2000 people are present for this important ceremony, which resembles the Canadian ceremonies held during the Armistice day. The ceremonial lasts two hours and at precisely 3 o'clock, we could hear the familiar Kiowa helicopter sound from the St-Hubert airport approaching for a low fly over. Dominic Rotondo was responsible for that wonderful surprise!
Melocheville now harbours the first memorial Monument of The Canadian Vietnam Veterans Quebec. Since then, every month of July a Vigil ceremony takes place at the Monument site and during that same weekend, we go across the border.
In 1993, the CVVQ decides to take part in the parade on Armistice day in Montreal , but, the Canadian Legion officers refuse our participation. A friend and supporter from Massachusets, Bob Bolduc, encourages the Veterans to join the parade. The CVVQ is then given permission to do so; late on the evening of November 10 th , the Legion officers contact the president of the CVVQ, Jacques Gendron, in order to give them permission to walk in the parade providing we respect two conditions:
Those two conditions are: 1) The Vietnam Veterans have to walk behind the parade and beyond all the other participants, non-veterans included. 2) The CVVQ has to lay its funeral wreath on the side of the cenotaph monument of Montreal. We more less agree on those conditions and someone transfers the wreath; after lunch someone else puts it in front of the cenotaph.
The Canadian Vietnam Veterans cannot become honorary members of the Royal Canadian Legion. In June of 1994, during the National Administration Congress, someone proposes that we allow Canadian Vietnam Veterans to join the Royal Canadian Legion as of October 1994.
In June of 1996, the Canadian War Museum adds a small exhibit of the Vietnam War. Through the Vietnam Veterans, the Canadian people discover more on their history within the Canadian and American military services.
Then on October 27, 2018, at a meeting presided over by Stéphane Corbeil, President of CVVQ, it was proposed by Serge Litalien and seconded by Louis Lemire that the CVVQ erect a monument with the names of the 146 Canadians who served in the American Armed Forces during the Vietnam War and who lost their lives. Jacques Gendron and Gilles Sauvé are busy planning an extraordinary fundraising campaign and on July 12, 2019, the monument is inaugurated in the presence of many dignitaries.
On July 2024, our Monument was moved to,’Club des Ainés Melocheville’, located at 380 Boul de Melocheville, Beauharnois, QC J0S 1J0, 1.2 kilometers from the old site. It was inaugurated July 12 2024 during our 35st Cross Border Run.
Today, the CVVQ participates in many other activities such as Rolling Thunder in Washington DC, held in May of each year and also in other ceremonies and outings.
Please take note of the following literature in regards to the Vietnam Canadian Veterans :
Unknown Warriors by Fred Gaffen
I Volunteered - Canadian Vietnam Vets Remember by Tracey Arial
Cross Border Warriors By Fred Gaffen
Books in which you will learn a bit more about those Canadians and Americans who crossed the border in order to join the U.S. Army during the Civil War, the First & Second World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.
Everyone has a story. Here is Arthur Diabo's.
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At 18, Arthur Diabo flew to Vietnam with a contingent of U.S. Marine infantry. When he returned six months later, he had lost the use of his left arm.
“It had always been my dream to join the military and become a Marine,” says the 76-year-old Mohawk veteran from Kahnawake. In 1967, he was living with his parents in Brooklyn, where his father worked as a steel erector, like generations of Mohawks in his community. Arthur was working in a factory in New York City and was bored with his job.
As a member of a First Nation, and under the Jay Treaty, recognized by the United States, Arthur Diabo was eligible to enlist in either the Canadian or U.S. military. And the American military offered financial incentives and “practiced less discrimination against Indigenous people than the Canadian military,” he says. Young Diabo and his brother enlisted, one in the Marines, the other in the Air Force, and went through the various stages of training. “You go to boot camp for two months. Then you do additional training, and infantry training,” Arthur Diabo recounts. “Then they give you a MOS [military occupational specialty code], which determines what you’re going to do. My MOS code assigned me to the infantry.”
The infantry is the contingent of soldiers who fight on foot, on the ground. It’s a dangerous mission, more dangerous than the Air Force, in which his brother worked. But at the time, the United States was still in a favorable position in Vietnam. “I knew what I was going to do there,” Arthur Diabo recalls. “And I wanted to go.”
The Brutal Reality of Combat
It was on the battlefield that the brutality of war caught up with him, when a friend was blown up beside him. “The reality of combat set in very quickly after the experience of the first death. He was a friend, even though I hadn’t known him for very long. He stepped on a mine. We called these mines ‘bouncing betty.’ And it literally cut him in two. All that was left were his two legs. It was a very traumatic experience for an 18-year-old. But that was the reality of war. You’re alive and well, and a minute later, you’re gone,” he recalls.
The fighting continued. Arthur Diabo was first wounded in the hand by shrapnel, a shell filled with bullets that scatter with the explosion. “It was in May 1968,” he remembers. His second and most serious injury occurred in June: a bullet in the arm, fired by the enemy. Arthur Diabo fell into a rice paddy, and rice paddies in Vietnam are often fertilized with human excrement. “When the rainy season comes, the rice paddy fills with water. It becomes very infectious,” he explains.
“I wasn’t evacuated until the next day. Because of the raging battle, the helicopters couldn’t come and get us; there were several of us wounded Marines. So, the infection worsened. I was sent to a hospital in Japan. I stayed a few nights, and then they sent me back to the United States.” Since then, Arthur Diabo has only regained 30% of the use of his left arm.
Back in Kahnawake
“I tried to go work in the steel industry, but it didn’t work out,” he says. It was to the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, where he lived until the age of 13, that Arthur Diabo finally returned and where he still lives today. “I found work in the community. I worked for community services, social services.”
Over time, he came to see similarities between his people, the Mohawk Nation, and the Vietnamese against whom he fought on behalf of the American army. “Over the years, my perception of this enemy has changed,” he says. “The Vietnamese have fought for centuries. They fought against the Chinese. They fought against the Japanese. They fought against the French. Everyone fought over their territory,” he says. This perception became even more acute during the Oka events of 1990, he says, when the Sûreté du Québec and then the Canadian army invaded Kanesatake territory, reminding him of how the American army had invaded Vietnam at the time. “The Sûreté du Québec and the Canadian army came onto our territory and attacked us. We did not attack them.”
Like most war veterans, Arthur Diabo suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. “Being next to that guy who stepped on a mine is something no one ever wants to experience. But a combat Marine can see it 10 to 15 times during his service. That’s way too many. People react differently to post-traumatic stress. The symptoms depend on the trauma. There are things you avoid, environments, smells, climates that can trigger reactions,” he says. He remains positive, grateful for the U.S. veteran’s pension he has received since the war, which allows him to benefit from a favorable exchange rate.
He remembers Kahnawake, the place of his childhood, when the community lived along the St. Lawrence River before the seaway was built. This dam, built in the 1950s to allow more boats to pass on the river, cut the Kahnawake community off from direct access to the water. “Back then,” he recounts in a collection of elders’ memories gathered by the community, “the women of the community would meet by the river on mild days. We didn’t need newspapers because a lot of information circulated among these women. They spoke in Mohawk about the latest news and community gossip. As a child, I understood Mohawk, but I stuttered and lacked the confidence to speak directly with people in that language.”
The majority of Kahnawake Mohawks who enlist in the military do so in the American army, although some also enlist in the Canadian army. However, in the current context, amidst tensions between Canada and the United States, Arthur Diabo believes he would no longer enlist under the American flag.
THIS IS THE STORY OF JACQUES GENDRON
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ON LEFT
Jacques Gendron Président Fondateur
ON RIGHT
Gilles Sauvé
Vice-Président Fondateur
For Jacques Gendron, who served in Vietnam under the American flag, it's important to remember the Quebecers and Canadians who were sent to the war to replace Americans who had fled.
"The Americans took any Quebecers and Canadians who volunteered because the Americans didn't like the war and didn't want to go. It wasn't a popular war. We were replacing those from the United States who had fled, mostly to Ontario. We're talking about at least 50,000 deserters," says Gendron, originally from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, who spent a year in Vietnam from March 1964 to March 1965.
Upon his return, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and didn't find anyone to listen. He decided to found the Quebec Association of Vietnam Veterans in 1989. “More than 5,000 Quebecers and 30,000 Canadians fought in Vietnam, and people here had no feelings about that war. We couldn’t talk about it. Especially about those who disappeared there, who died on the battlefield,” argues the former mayor of Maple Grove.
A Monument for the Missing
Jacques Gendron then decided to erect a monument to remember them. It was first installed in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle before being moved to Sainte-Catherine. Shortly after, the site was renovated, and in 1989, Melocheville agreed to host the memorial.
“There are 146 names on the list, guys missing in action, young soldiers who lost their lives there or whose bodies were never recovered,” says Jacques Gendron, alongside Gilles Sauvé, who helps him with the Association, which has about a hundred members and organizes peaceful demonstrations on days of remembrance.
November 11th is one such day. “There’s also a vigil in July during which we recite the names of each of the 146 missing. And there’s the Cross Border Run, a motorcycle ride that allows Americans and Canadians to remember together,” explains Gilles Sauvé, whose father was American and came to work in Canada.
A Châteauguay Resident Among the Victims
While it has been possible, since last year, to pay respects at this cenotaph in Melocheville, in a solemn setting near the former Town Hall, it is important to remember that a son of Châteauguay fought in Vietnam, in Binh Dinh, and died on March 4, 1971.
Gary Butt was not quite 20 years old when, surrounded by American soldiers, he died on the field of honour. Staff Sergeant Butt is now buried in the Christ-Roi Cemetery in Châteauguay. He posthumously received the Bronze Star Medal for bravery, with the Combat Distinction, in recognition of his exemplary courage in combat. He served as a paratrooper.
For Jacques Gendron, the monument to Quebec Vietnam Veterans is a duty of remembrance, and people should know that it exists. “We have plans to raise awareness of the place, but it all comes down to money. We have a Foundation to collect donations and we need to survive so that we don’t forget that people fought and some lost their lives,” he concluded.
