Normandy Unit 1st C.A.V.

This page is about our rider in chief and C.A.V. members of distinction

General Lewis Mackenzie was born in Truro, Nova Scotia a long time ago. He is a graduate of Xavier Junior College of Sydney, Cape Breton and the University of Manitoba. During his thirty six years of military service in the Infantry he served nine years in Germany with NATO forces and managed to fit in nine peacekeeping tours of duty in six different mission areas - the Gaza Strip, Cyprus, Vietnam, Cairo, Central America and Sarajevo.

In 1990 General Mackenzie was appointed commander of the United Nation’s Observer mission in Central America. Two years later he was assigned to the United Nation’s Protection Force in Yugoslavia. In May of that year he created and assumed command of Sector Sarajevo and with a contingent of soldiers from 31 countries opened the Sarajevo airport for the delivery of humanitarian aid during the height of the Bosnian civil war. As a result he became the only Canadian, military or civilian, to be awarded a second Meritorious Service Cross. He retired from the Canadian Forces in 1993.

Jan De Vries was a paratrooper in wwII, he was one of the many canadian parptroopers that jumped on D-Day. He has been awarded numerous medals for his bravery, and is an Order of Canada Recipent.

 General Rick Hillier, CMM, MSC, CD (born 1955), is the former Chief of the Defense Staff of the Canadian Forces. He held this appointment from February 4, 2005 to July 1, 2008. He retired on July 1, 2008

Born in Newfoundland and Labrador, General Rick Hillier joined the Canadian Forces as soon as he could. Having enrolled in the Canadian Forces in 1973 through the Regular Officer Training Plan program, he graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science Degree. After completing his armour officer classification training, he joined his first regiment, the 8th Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise's) in Petawawa, Ontario. Subsequently, he served with, and later commanded, the Royal Canadian Dragoons in Canada and Germany.

In 1998 General Hillier was appointed as the first Canadian Deputy Commanding General of III Corps, US Army in Fort Hood, Texas. In 2000 he took command of NATO's Stabilization Force's (SFOR) Multinational Division (Southwest) in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In May 2003 General Hillier was appointed as Commander of the Army and subsequently, in October 2003, he was selected as the Commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, Afghanistan.

General Hillier was promoted to his present rank and assumed duties as the Chief of the Defence Staff on 4 February 2005. Nicknamed The Big Cod by his adoring troops, on 01 July 2008, having achieved what he had set out, General Hillier retired from the CF. Having most definitely made his place in Canadian history, he was arguably Canada's best commanding general throughout this country's long military history.