<VV> Lest Us Not Forget.

[Dave & Carole Thomson]

LET US NOT FORGET.



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 it's 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, it's 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 its 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 non-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.



 Lest we forget.