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Topic: Just a good read, enjoy. (Read 250 times)
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John Saulnier
John
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The Good Years
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British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It
>>>> is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday
>>>> Telegraph Article From today's UK wires:
>>>>
>>>> Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, The Sunday
>>>> Telegraph LONDON
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan,
>>>> probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that
>>>> Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will
>>>> bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always, will forget
>>>> its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever
>>>> does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the
>>>> selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then,
>>>> once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the
>>>> perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for
>>>> someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks
>>>> life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious
>>>> injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there
>>>> is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped
>>>> glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.
>>>> That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent
>>>> with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in
>>>> two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in
>>>> two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet
>>>> had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that
>>>> it never fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary
>>>> contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the
>>>> greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population
>>>> of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First
>>>> World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918
>>>> were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers
>>>> in the entire British order of battle. Canada was repaid for its
>>>> enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to
>>>> victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the
>>>> work of the 'British.' The Second World War provided a re-run. The
>>>> Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up
>>>> policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than
>>>> 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during
>>>> which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada
>>>> finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air
>>>> force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime
>>>> indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the
>>>> war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an
>>>> American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had
>>>> clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course,
>>>> Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate
>>>> Canadian identity. So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers
>>>> arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they
>>>> are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland,
>>>> Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex
>>>> Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception
>>>> become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in
>>>> the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian,
>>>> unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a
>>>> moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find
>>>> any takers. Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the
>>>> achievements of it's sons and daughters as the rest of the world is
>>>> completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves -
>>>> and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has
>>>> provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in
>>>> the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in
>>>> 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from
>>>> Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia. Yet the only foreign
>>>> engagement that has entered the popular on-Canadian imagination was the
>>>> sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered
>>>> two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in
>>>> disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which,
>>>> naturally, the Canadians received no international credit. So who
>>>> today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless
>>>> friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather
>>>> like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for
>>>> honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains
>>>> something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which
>>>> Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This
>>>> past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too
>>>> tragically well.
>>>>
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RCR DEPOT-1965(SICILY PL) CYPRUS-1966-GERMANY-1967-70-LONDON-1970-73-GERMANY-1973-77-LONDON-1977-81-CFSPDB-1981-85-CFOCS-1985-89.RETIRED 89. REMAINED IN CHILLIWACK UNTIL 1998,MOVED TO NB IN 98 TO PRESENT TIME.
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Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Good read, brother... As a nation, humility becomes us. Aas does action, not lipservice... We... are.. Canadian!  |
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
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Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 3213
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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My cousin sent me it, Wayne. He was a weapons tech with the tanks when the 1st was on the ground. You must have some good pics around, brother, how bout posting a few for the lads...  |
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
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