Veterans with a Vision

Serge Marc Durflinger is an associate professor of history at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec and co-editor of War and Society in Post-Confederation Canada.

Durflinger successfully illustrates the important contributions made by war blinded veterans to the creation of national institutions and celebrates the men who achieved personal success in spite of their disability. In spite of minor reservations, Veterans with a Vision makes important contributions to the field of veterans’ studies, the development of the Canadian state, and will be a useful work for scholars of twentieth century Canada.

Alex Souchen, University of Western Ontario:

Veterans with a Vision is a must read for historians interested in the social impact of war on Canadian society. It is well written, thoroughly researched, soundly organized, and poignantly relevant as Canada prepares to rehabilitate a new generation of veterans in the post-Afghanistan era.

David Dorward, blinded in Sicily, 1943:
Books written about the conflict record major political decisions and their results; they speak of generals, and of heroes. There is a paucity of literary tribute to those who offered their youth to war; nor are there books which tell of the disabled, the war blinded, the amputee, the burnt-out veteran.

Desmond Morton, author of Fight or Pay: Soldiers’ Families in the Great War:
Among many other things, Veterans with a Vision is the history of the most successful and influential of Canada’s disabled veterans, the war-blinded. Durflinger makes no secret of his admiration for Edwin Baker, the blinded engineer whose vision of the most appropriate role and treatment of the war-blinded, coupled with his acute sense of real-politik, make him a model for anyone seeking to guide an NGO to success. This timely book will interest anyone involved in disability as a social phenomenon and should inspire comparable volumes for other categories of disability, whether war-related or a consequence of civil life.

Tim Cook, author of Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917-1918:
Based on fascinating personal stories, thorough archival research, and rigorous scholarship, Veterans with a Vision illuminates the lives of Canadian veterans from the world wars and their integration back into society as contributing members. Durflinger tracks the veterans’ decades-long battles, as they mobilized to establish organizations to meet their unique ends and pressure the government for more generous rights and pensions. Well-written and thoughtfully argued, this provocative book is essential reading for military and social historians, and those with an interest in the interaction of citizens and the state.

Peter Neary, co-editor of The Veterans Charter and Post-World War II Canada:
This is a highly original book. Durflinger’s impressive narrative adds a new dimension to our understanding of the social history of Canada’s role in the two world wars of the twentieth century.

James Rawlinson, blinded at Vimy, 1917:
I was unlucky enough to get in the way of one of the shrapnel bullets. I felt a slight sting in my right temple as though pricked by a red-hot needle – and then the world became black. Dawn was now breaking, but night had sealed my eyes.