<VV> Lest Us Not Forget.

[ricknorris at suddenlink.net]

To ALL my military brethern,
Thanks and welcome home.
--
Rick Norris
#36 Sunoco Corvair
www.corvairalley.com 

---- Dave & Carole Thomson <jdavethomson at shaw.ca> wrote: 
> 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.
> 
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