A collaboration of Honouring Bravery and TVO Media Education Group, each 10-minute documentary explores the experiences of a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Please note: the videos in this documentary series discuss topics that are not suitable for all ages. Educator discretion is advised.
On June 25th, 1950, communist North Korea invaded the South. It was the first major military action of the Cold War and the first significant test for the newly formed United Nations. The conflict claimed the lives of more than 2.5 million people and cemented the great power rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet, the Korean War is largely a forgotten chapter of history. The inaugural episode of Forgotten War, narrated by Steve Paikin, explores this history through the eyes of someone who lived it: Canadian Korean War veteran Romeo Daley. He fought for over a year in Korea with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and was one of the first Canadians sent to a M.A.S.H. unit after being injured by an exploding grenade.
His colleagues described it as one of the “greatest single acts of bravery” they’d ever witnessed. In 2009, while deployed as part of an anti-explosives team in Kandahar, Bruno Guevremont became the only Canadian Armed Forces member to defuse a live suicide bomber. In episode two of Forgotten War, Guevremont describes the day that changed his life, the “cat-and-mouse game” between him and the Taliban, the difficulty of coming home, and how he healed from the psychological wounds that have been ignored throughout most of the history of war.
From the Egyptians and Persians to the Romans and even Alexander the Great, the island of Cyprus has been ruled by a revolving door of empires. Today, it is partitioned between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. How did we get here? What caused this island to be carved into two? And why does it remain divided? With animated maps and guest Major-General Alain Forand, this episode of Forgotten War digs into the millennia-old history of Cyprus and the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974 that led to its partition.
Episode four of “Forgotten War” explores the history of the Yugoslav wars for independence along with guest Sandra Perron. She was Canada’s first female infantry officer and deployed to both Bosnia and Croatia. Perron explains the difficulty of being a peacekeeper “when there is no peace to keep,” the ethnic tensions that exploded throughout the region, and the personal battle she had within a military that wasn’t ready to accept women in combat roles.
From the trenches of Korea to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, “Forgotten War” has detailed these post-World War II conflicts through the eyes of Canadian veterans who were there. But do Canadians know much if anything about this history? Has our peacekeeping past become more myth than reality? And from the days as a middle power punching above our weight, has Canada lost its place in the world? For the final episode of “Forgotten War”, Steve Paikin and a panel of historians consider Canada’s relationship with this history and the increasingly unstable world we face in 2024.