[ArmyMan]

This is a good read . It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words.

Sunday Telegraph Article From 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 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 peace keepers 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 neighbor has given it in Afghanistan ? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honorable things for honorable 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 honor comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

[Mr_Canada old]

Ah yes, I've read this....

Thank you, Brits!

[kal]

Yea I think this is an older article. Says a lot though, and is so true.

[BartSimpson]

Wow. He not ony called Canadians the friends of Britain (true, but ever so rarely uttered) he was so diligent in his research as to credit Canadian medical troopers with serving in Vietnam.

[bootlegga]

It was originally published after the 'friendly fire' incident in 2002 in Afghanistan. Still, it's as poignant and true as ever...

[MarEng]

We know we're respected. And we know we're doing the right thing. But, you ask anybody in the forces how they feel about being "ignored" and we'll all say the same thing, "That's the way we like it. We're just doin our jobs." That has been drilled into my head since basic training. The greatest thing any one of us can hope to achieve is walking away from a situation where we were needed with our anonymity.

We don't want to be celebrated. It's embarassing. Not one of us is doing this for glory. We're doing it for personal pride and a sense of duty to this great nation.

Why do we do it? Because, somebody has to. Not every man or woman is cut out for this job. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

The one thing that keeps most of us going is looking over at our shipmates or platoon members and realizing his safety and well being are riding on my shoulders. We're a different kind of team. We're selfless and that's how we like it. There is no greater feeling than knowing that nobody knows you're even there because you do your job so well that you're never noticed.

Cpl Williams and I went to basic training together. Aaron was a class act. Alot of us still keep in touch and most of us agree that his death has brought the reality of this life closer to home. And if anything, it has strengthened our resolve to work harder and make this mission a success. It pains me to see his pictures all over the news, yet it makes my heart burst with pride to know that he died doing the right thing. I know he would feel the same way if any one of us aside from him would have died helping those in need. He is sorely missed by everyone of us who knew him.

0322B All the way Aaron, all the way...

[kal]

MarEng wrote:

We know we're respected. And we know we're doing the right thing. But, you ask anybody in the forces how they feel about being "ignored" and we'll all say the same thing, "That's the way we like it. We're just doin our jobs." That has been drilled into my head since basic training. The greatest thing any one of us can hope to achieve is walking away from a situation where we were needed with our anonymity.

We don't want to be celebrated. It's embarassing. Not one of us is doing this for glory. We're doing it for personal pride and a sense of duty to this great nation.

Why do we do it? Because, somebody has to. Not every man or woman is cut out for this job. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

The one thing that keeps most of us going is looking over at our shipmates or platoon members and realizing his safety and well being are riding on my shoulders. We're a different kind of team. We're selfless and that's how we like it. There is no greater feeling than knowing that nobody knows you're even there because you do your job so well that you're never noticed.

Well said. I think this is a large part of what separates Canadian service personnel from a vast majority of the rest.

[bootlegga]

MarEng wrote:

We know we're respected. And we know we're doing the right thing. But, you ask anybody in the forces how they feel about being "ignored" and we'll all say the same thing, "That's the way we like it. We're just doin our jobs." That has been drilled into my head since basic training. The greatest thing any one of us can hope to achieve is walking away from a situation where we were needed with our anonymity.

We don't want to be celebrated. It's embarassing. Not one of us is doing this for glory. We're doing it for personal pride and a sense of duty to this great nation.

Why do we do it? Because, somebody has to. Not every man or woman is cut out for this job. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

The one thing that keeps most of us going is looking over at our shipmates or platoon members and realizing his safety and well being are riding on my shoulders. We're a different kind of team. We're selfless and that's how we like it. There is no greater feeling than knowing that nobody knows you're even there because you do your job so well that you're never noticed.

Cpl Williams and I went to basic training together. Aaron was a class act. Alot of us still keep in touch and most of us agree that his death has brought the reality of this life closer to home. And if anything, it has strengthened our resolve to work harder and make this mission a success. It pains me to see his pictures all over the news, yet it makes my heart burst with pride to know that he died doing the right thing. I know he would feel the same way if any one of us aside from him would have died helping those in need. He is sorely missed by everyone of us who knew him.

0322B All the way Aaron, all the way...

[LABBATTS50]

BartSimpson wrote:

Wow. He not ony called Canadians the friends of Britain (true, but ever so rarely uttered) he was so diligent in his research as to credit Canadian medical troopers with serving in Vietnam.

Not to mention the thousands who crossed the border to don the US uniform to fight communism.

[canuckns]

MarEng wrote:

We know we're respected. And we know we're doing the right thing. But, you ask anybody in the forces how they feel about being "ignored" and we'll all say the same thing, "That's the way we like it. We're just doin our jobs." That has been drilled into my head since basic training. The greatest thing any one of us can hope to achieve is walking away from a situation where we were needed with our anonymity.

We don't want to be celebrated. It's embarassing. Not one of us is doing this for glory. We're doing it for personal pride and a sense of duty to this great nation.

Why do we do it? Because, somebody has to. Not every man or woman is cut out for this job. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

The one thing that keeps most of us going is looking over at our shipmates or platoon members and realizing his safety and well being are riding on my shoulders. We're a different kind of team. We're selfless and that's how we like it. There is no greater feeling than knowing that nobody knows you're even there because you do your job so well that you're never noticed.

Cpl Williams and I went to basic training together. Aaron was a class act. Alot of us still keep in touch and most of us agree that his death has brought the reality of this life closer to home. And if anything, it has strengthened our resolve to work harder and make this mission a success. It pains me to see his pictures all over the news, yet it makes my heart burst with pride to know that he died doing the right thing. I know he would feel the same way if any one of us aside from him would have died helping those in need. He is sorely missed by everyone of us who knew him.

0322B All the way Aaron, all the way...

[Paige]

It's nice to see articles like this, even if it's an older one as this one is. And to be honest from my experiances from different places in the country Canadians are two things, firstly they're modest, sometimes to a point of insanity, secondly they're ambitious, but no matter how much so, they're always writing off their own deads as smaller then they are, that coupled with the US to the south of us, makes our aformentioned modesty even more so apparent, means our acheavements are minimized by comparason. Which is sometimes sad to some extent, though at the same time somewhat nice to see.

[GreatBriton]

BartSimpson wrote:

Wow. He not ony called Canadians the friends of Britain

Though not in Iraq, when Canada sat back whilst around 51 countries fought to rid that country of Saddam.

And, looking at the list which shows what countries made the most money by selling weapons to Saddam (topped by Russia and France which, surprise, surprise were against the war, and the only reason the Germans were against it was because nowadays they are nothing but France's poodle) Canada ranked low, so low that it ranked even lower than the US and the UK, which themselves ranked low.

So the reason why Canada opposed the Iraq War when, unlike France and Russia it wouldn't have gained anything had Saddam remained in power, is something of a mystery.

[WDHIII]

GreatBriton wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Wow. He not ony called Canadians the friends of Britain

Though not in Iraq.

[GreatBriton]

WDHIII wrote:

GreatBriton wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Wow. He not ony called Canadians the friends of Britain

Though not in Iraq.

It's true, isn't it?

I cannot remember hearing about even ONE Canadian soldier in Iraq.

The only Canadian heavies that are in Iraq at the moment is a Canadian security guard company.

Is that the best Canada can do? Security guards?

51 countries sent troops to Iraq, but not Canada.

[WDHIII]

GreatBriton wrote:

WDHIII wrote:

GreatBriton wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Wow. He not ony called Canadians the friends of Britain

Though not in Iraq.

It's true, isn't it?

I cannot remember hearing about even ONE Canadian soldier in Iraq.

The only Canadian heavies that are in Iraq at the moment is a Canadian security guard company.

Is that the best Canada can do? Security guards?

51 countries sent troops to Iraq, but not Canada.

It was our Govenments CHOICE to not send troops........