I know what you mean with regard to the hippies, I go to Trent University and yeah, we're just rampant with them, and what makes it worse is that they're the 'University know-it-all' hippies... most of whom are first years enrolled in Politics 100.
To play Devi's advocate (wrt to the McGill guy), theres a good chance he didn't take any courses that specifically deal with the military aspect of WWII; now I'd be a little worried if he graduated with a Military history degree and didn't know about Canada's contribution to D-Day.
A girl I lived with during my second year was a history major as well, but was surprised to learn that not only did Canada contribute to the Korean Police Action, that there was in fact a conflict in Korea - she always assumed that MASH was set in Vietnam. The scary part is she's currently enrolled at Queen's doing her B. Ed, and is hoping to be a high school History/English teacher.