armed forces
It’s time for Canada to remember, the heroes of Kapyong
“Be steady, kill and don’t give way!”
— Lieut.-Col Jim Stone’s order to his troops on the eve of battle
Korean peninsula, April 1951.
It’s spring in Korea, and things are warming up from the preceding brutal cold.
You are tired and hungry, and full of fear.
Your only friend, is a standard issue Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk 1. A reliable bolt-action rifle in use for over a half century, and it’s got a mean kick.
But that badge on your shoulder, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment (2PPCLI) gives you confidence.
So does commander Lieutenant Colonel Jim Stone, a Second World War veteran.
And you are one mean mother-fucker, to put it nicely. Spoiling for a fight.
Instead, North Korean forces have been pushed across their border back into the North. It looked like an easy stint, garrison duty no less.
The thought of meeting one of those nice Korean girls wasn’t far away, and maybe having one of those weird Korean beers.
Man, was that about to change.
While gung-ho US General Douglas MacArthur repeatedly refused to heed Chinese warnings and US intelligence reports, China launched a massive surprise counteroffensive with approximately 300,000 soldiers, catching the overextended UN forces completely off guard.
MacArthur’s misjudgment was a critical error that prolonged the war for another two and a half years.
And a fellow named Hub Gray, a Canadian from Winnipeg, would end up in the maelstrom.
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What was at stake? Hill 677, which controlled the entrance to the Kapyong River Valley north of Seoul. Beyond that, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping the advancing communist forces from retaking Seoul.
The hill was a critical last stand.
The Aussies took it on the chin, first.
The 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), bore the brunt of the initial attack and after heavy combat were forced to withdraw, with 155 casualties.
Captain Reg Saunders, the first Aboriginal Australian to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army, was Officer Commanding C Company, 3 RAR.
After the battle, he said: “At last I felt like an Anzac, and I imagine there were 600 others like me.”
While the Australians fought bravely, Stone ordered his Canadians, about 700 troops, to dig in on Hill 677 and prepare to repel a large brigade of massing Chinese forces, estimated at nearly 5,000-strong.
After attacking the Australians, the Chinese turned their attention to the PPCLI.
Death was on the menu, not a picnic. In waves.
The Canadians risked being wiped out. Outnumbered and outgunned.
As expected, on the night of April 22, 1951, an entire Chinese communist division swarmed them, hoping to take Seoul, only a few miles away. 2PPCLI was surrounded, and on its own.
It was a terrifying night of positions lost and retaken, hand-to-hand fighting in the dark, with bayonets, grenades, rifle butts and shovels.
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Private Wayne Mitchell, despite being wounded, charged the enemy three times with his Bren gun. He earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his efforts.
The relentless waves of Chinese soldiers almost overran the position of D Company.
With his men securely entrenched below ground, company commander Captain J. G. W. Mills, desperate and overrun, called for an artillery strike on the position of his own 10 Platoon — what the Americans called “Broken Arrow.”
He relayed the request from Lieutenant Mike Levy, who was hunkered down with his men in shallow foxholes on the hill.
A battery of New Zealander guns obliged, firing 2,300 rounds of shells in less than an hour, destroying the Chinese forces on that position.
Though the barrage landed just metres from Levy’s position, he and his men were unscathed.
“I remember sitting down there in that trench one time during that fight and I was shaking and I was thinking, ‘What the f–k are doing here, you dumb shit?”‘ said Ernie Seronik, a member of the 2PPCLI’s D Company.
“You really can’t tell people about it, can’t describe it. You can’t know what it’s like until you’re there, the fear you have, and it stays with you. I was scared all the time.”
“When you sit in the dark and are looking for and waiting for them to appear, every stump that is out there is a person, the enemy,” recalled Seronik.
“At that time, the real terror comes from not knowing what’s going to happen to you. At any time a bullet can come out of nowhere and you’re dead. It happened a lot.”
At one point, a Chinese officer yelled, “Kill the American pigs,” in Chinese.
Levy, a platoon commander who understood the dialect, yelled back:
“We are Canadian soldiers, we have lots of Canadian soldiers here.”
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Desperate, the Chinese attacked battalion headquarters from the rear. Hoping to break the Canadian lines.
If HQ fell, the Canadians would be driven off the hill and the road to Seoul would be open. It did not fall, in part thanks to Hub Gray.
He was in charge of a small mortar-machine gun unit. Coming at them: about 500 battle-hardened Chinese.
With the enemy almost on top of them, Gray’s men opened fire, the Chinese attack stalled, and then fell apart, described by one Canadian as “like kicking the top off an ant hill.”
Through it all, Stone refused to allow his men to withdraw, as he believed the hill was a critical strategic point on the UN front. He was right, it was.
Veteran David Crook, remembered the battle all too well.
“From sheer boredom to sheer terror. At times it didn’t stop. And then you’d get lulls where the enemy would be regrouping for another attack so we’d get a bit of a breather to think a little bit. But, most times it was just non-stop,” he said.
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While they defended the hill, the Canadians were cut off and had to be supplied via air drop.
As Canadian soldier Gerald Gowing remembered: “We were surrounded on the hills of Kapyong and there was a lot of fire. We were pretty well out of ammunition and out of food too. We did get some air supplies dropped in, but we were actually surrounded… that was a scary moment, let me tell you.”
The Canadians were down to their last bullets when the Chinese advance finally broke. Hub’s machine guns had saved HQ.
Kapyong did not fall. Nor did Seoul. The Canadians held firm their positions.
The 2PPCLI were eventually relieved on the front line by a battalion of the 1st US Cavalry Division.
The battle contributed significantly to the defeat of the Chinese offensive, protecting the capital city of Seoul from re-occupation, and plugging the hole in the UN line to give the South Koreans time to retreat.
Both the Canadians and the Australians received the United States Presidential Unit Citation from the American government.
Five men in other units were (rightly) decorated for bravery that night. Hub Gray was not among them.
Levy wasn’t recognized for his bravery until 2003, when Governor General Adrienne Clarkson granted him a coat of arms.
In later years Hub Gray wrote his own account of Kapyong (Beyond the Danger Close) with a vivid account of the fighting, but made no mention at all of his own vital role. You’d scarcely know he was there.
But he was. A true Canadian hero. Along with all the rest.
Every child/student in Canada, should know their names, and what they did.
Hubert Archibald Gray known as “Hub” to all his friends, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Nov. 9, 2018, in Calgary, with family at his bedside. He was 90.
— with files, from the National Post
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From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The global war business scored record revenues in 2024 amid multiple protracted proxy conflicts across the world, according to a new industry analysis released on Monday.
The top 100 arms manufacturers in the world raked in $679 billion in revenue in 2024, up 5.9% from the year prior, according to a new Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) study. The figure marks the highest ever revenue for manufacturers recorded by SIPRI as the group credits major conflicts for supplying the large appetite for arms around the world.
“The rise in the total arms revenues of the Top 100 in 2024 was mostly due to overall increases in the arms revenues of companies based in Europe and the United States,” SIPRI said in their report. “There were year-on-year increases in all the geographical areas covered by the ranking apart from Asia and Oceania, which saw a slight decrease, largely as a result of a notable drop in the total arms revenues of Chinese companies.”
Notably, Chinese arms manufacturers saw a large drop in reported revenues, declining 10% from 2023 to 2024, according to SIPRI. Just off China’s shores, Japan’s arms industry saw the largest single year-over-year increase in revenue of all regions measured, jumping 40% from 2023 to 2024.
American companies dominate the top of the list, which measures individual companies’ revenue, with Lockheed Martin taking the top spot with $64,650,000,000 of arms revenue in 2024, according to the report. Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems follow shortly after in revenue,
The Czechoslovak Group recorded the single largest jump in year-on-year revenue from 2023 to 2024, increasing its haul by 193%, according to SIPRI. The increase is largely driven by their crucial role in supplying arms and ammunition to Ukraine.
The Pentagon contracted one of the group’s subsidiaries in August to build a new ammo plant in the U.S. to replenish artillery shell stockpiles drained by U.S. aid to Ukraine.
“In 2024 the growing demand for military equipment around the world, primarily linked to rising geopolitical tensions, accelerated the increase in total Top 100 arms revenues seen in 2023,” the report reads. “More than three quarters of companies in the Top 100 (77 companies) increased their arms revenues in 2024, with 42 reporting at least double-digit percentage growth.”
How the 2025 Federal Budget Demands More From Those Who’ve Already Given Everything
I’ve lived the word sacrifice.
Not the political kind that comes in speeches and press releases the real kind. The kind Mark Carney wouldn’t know if it slapped him in the face. The kind that costs sleep, sanity, blood. I’ve watched friends trade comfort for duty, and I’ve watched some of them leave in body bags while the rest of us carried the weight of their absence. So when the Prime Minister stood up this year and told Canadians the new budget would “require sacrifice,” I felt that familiar tightening in the gut the one every veteran knows. You brace for impact. You hope the pain lands in a place that makes sense.
It didn’t.
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Six months into Mark Carney’s limp imitation of leadership, it’s painfully clear who’s actually paying the bill. The 2025 budget somehow managing to bleed the country dry while still projecting a $78-billion deficit shields the political class, funnels money toward his network of insiders, and then quietly hacks away at the one department that should be sacrosanct: Veterans Affairs Canada.
If there’s one group that’s earned the right to be spared from government-imposed scarcity, it’s the people who carried this country’s flag into danger. Veterans don’t “symbolize” sacrifice they embody it on the daily And when Ottawa tightens the belt on VAC, the consequences aren’t abstract. They’re brutal and direct, causing nothing but more death and destruction. But Mark Carney doesn’t lose sleep over veterans killing themselves.
Punishment disguised as budgeting for a veteran means the difference between keeping a roof or sleeping in a truck. Punishment disguised as budgeting means PTSD left untreated until it turns a human being into another suicide statistic. Punishment disguised as budgeting means a veteran choosing between groceries and medication because some number-shuffler in Ottawa wants to pretend they’re being “responsible.”
This isn’t fiscal restraint it’s political betrayal wrapped in government stationery. Ottawa sells it as hard choices, but the hardness always falls on the backs of the same people: the ones who already paid more than their share, the ones who can’t afford another hit. Carney and his cabinet won’t feel a thing. Not one missed meal. Not one sleepless night. Not one flashback.
But the men and women who already paid in flesh? They’re the ones being told to give more.
That’s not sacrifice.
That’s abandonment dressed up as fiscal policy.
And Canadians need to recognize it for what it is a government that demands loyalty while refusing to give any in return. The fine print in the government’s own documents reveals what the slogans won’t.
Over the next two years, VAC plans to cut $2.227 billion from its “Benefits, Services and Support” programs. [2] Broader “savings initiatives” reach $4.4 billion over four years, much of it through reductions to the medical-cannabis program that thousands of veterans rely on to manage chronic pain and PTSD. [3] Independent analysts estimate yearly losses of roughly $900 million once the cuts are fully implemented. [4]
To put that in perspective: no other department is seeing reductions on this scale. Not Defence, not Infrastructure, not the Prime Minister’s Office thats for damn sure. Only the people who’ve already paid their debt to this country are being asked to give again.
The government’s line is tidy: “We’re not cutting services we’re modernizing. Artificial Intelligence will streamline processing and improve efficiency.”
That sounds fine until you read the departmental notes. The “modernization” translates into fewer human case managers, longer waits, and narrower eligibility. It’s austerity dressed up as innovation. I’ve coached veterans through the system. They don’t need algorithms; they need advocates who understand trauma, identity loss, and the grind of reintegration. They need empathy, not automation.
This isn’t abstract accounting. Behind every dollar is a life on the edge, the human cost and toll is very real.
- Homelessness: Veterans make up a disproportionate number of Canada’s homeless population. Cutting benefits only deepens that crisis.
- Mental Health: Parliament’s ongoing study on veteran suicide shows rising rates of despair linked to delays and denials in VAC services. [5] Knowing MAID for mental illness alone in 2027 will take out a significant amount of us.
- Food Insecurity: A 2024 VAC survey found nearly one in four veterans reported struggling to afford basic groceries. That’s before these cuts.
We talk about “service” like it ends with deployment. It doesn’t. Service continues in how a nation cares for those who carried its battles, and this doesn’t include the cannabis cut to medication or the fight’s we have to fight when they tell us our injuries are “not service related”
The insult is magnified by the timing. These cuts were announced just days before November 11 Remembrance Day, when Canadians bow their heads and say, “We will remember them.”
Apparently, the government remembered to draft the talking points but forgot the meaning behind them, not a single one of the liberal government should have been allowed to show their faces to veteran’s or at a ceremony. They’re nothing but liars, grifters and traitors to this nation. Yes I’m talking about Jill McKnight and Mark Carney.
The budget still runs the second-largest deficit in Canadian history. [6]
Veteran cuts don’t fix that. They barely dent it. What they do is let the government say it’s “finding efficiencies” while avoiding the real structural overspending that created the problem in the first place. When a government chooses to protect its pet projects and insider contracts while pulling support from veterans, that’s not fiscal discipline it’s moral cowardice. The worst part is that This isn’t an isolated move. It fits a six-month pattern: large, attention-grabbing announcements about “reform,” followed by fine print that concentrates power and shifts burden downward. Veterans just happen to be the first visible casualty.
The same budget expands spending in other politically convenient areas green-transition subsidies, digital-governance infrastructure, and administration while the people who once embodied service are told to tighten their belts.
As a combat veteran, I know what it’s like to come home and realize that the fight didn’t end overseas it just changed terrain. We fought for freedom abroad only to watch bureaucratic neglect wage a quieter war here at home. Veterans don’t ask for privilege. They ask for respect, for competence, for follow-through on the promises this country made when it sent them into harm’s way.
Here’s what really needs to change, the liberal government has to go, thats step one. Restore VAC funding immediately. Any “savings” plan that touches benefits, services, or support should be scrapped. End the AI façade. Efficiency can’t replace empathy. Keep human case workers who understand the veteran experience. Audit and transparency. Publish a detailed breakdown of where VAC funds are cut and who approved it. Canadians deserve to see the receipts. National accountability. Every MP who voted for this budget should face veterans in their constituency and explain it, face-to-face.
Budgets are moral documents. They show what a country values. By slashing VAC while running record deficits, this government declared that veterans are expendable line items, not national obligations. The Prime Minister promised “shared sacrifice.” But the only people truly sacrificing are the ones who already gave more than most Canadians ever will.
Sacrifice isn’t about spreadsheets; it’s about service. It’s what every veteran understood when they raised their right hand. This government’s brand of sacrifice asking wounded soldiers to pay for political mismanagement isn’t austerity. It’s abandonment.
Canada owes its veterans more than a wreath once a year. It owes them respect written into every budget, not erased from it.
KELSI SHEREN
Footnotes
[1] The Guardian, “Canada’s 2025 Federal Budget Adds Tens of Billions to Deficit as Carney Spends to Dampen Tariffs Effect,” Nov 5 2025.
[2] True North Wire, “Liberal Budget to Cut $4.23 Billion from Veterans Affairs,” Nov 2025.
[3] StratCann, “Budget 2025 Includes Goal of Saving $4.4 Billion in Medical Cannabis Benefits,” Nov 2025.
[4] Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, “Where Will the Federal Government Cut to Pay for Military Spending and Tax Cuts?” Nov 2025.
[5] House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, “Study on Veteran Suicide and Sanctuary Trauma,” ongoing 2025.
[6] CBC News, “Federal Budget 2025 Deficit Second Largest in Canadian History,” Nov 2025.
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