Positive editorial

[Jack Neilson]

The following article was written by Kristyn Wallace, a reporter from Kingston's The Heritage newspaper.
(Article posted with Kristyn's permission)

Canadian soldiers don't keep the peace - they die for it
By Kristyn Wallace Heritage Staff 
Every morning, I wake up, turn on my computer, and check
the internet to see what's going on in the world. In recent weeks, I've
noticed that one headline is appearing more and more frequently:  " Canadian
soldier killed in Afghanistan. "  Each time I wake up to those words, I am
filled with a profound sadness that is relatively new to me. Maybe it's
because my job requires me to spend a lot of time at CFB Kingston, getting
to know the cadets, civilians, and military families who live and work on
the Base. But it's also because, as a Canadian, I was brought up to believe
that Canadians don't actually die in combat - they're just around to make
sure everything is as peaceful as possible.  In grade school, we were told
to be proud of the fact that we were from a peaceful nation. While soldiers
from other countries were out there getting killed and killing others, our
Canadian troops only resolved other people's conflicts - they didn't really
get involved.  While it's important that we were taught about Canada's
military intentions, it unfortunately created the impression that the
Canadian military doesn't really do anything - that they shy away from
conflict and run away from battle. Most of the people I know from my
generation have very little respect for Canadian soldiers - because hey,
they're not really risking their lives, right?  But recent headlines tell a
different story. In April, a roadside bomb killed Cpl. Matthew Dinning,
Lieut. William Turner, Bombardier Myles Mansell and Cpl. Randy Payne in what
was called  "the deadliest attack on Canadian forces in four years."
The following month, an RMC graduate, Capt. Nichola Goddard was killed while
fighting Taliban insurgents near Kandahar. She was the first Canadian woman
to be killed in action since the Second World War, and the first female
combat soldier killed on the front lines.  Also in March, Cpl. Paul Davis
died when his armoured vehicle crashed and flipped over during a routine
patrol in Afghanistan. Six other soldiers were injured in the accident.  And
then, just this past weekend, Cpl. Anthony Joseph Boneca, 21, a reservist
from the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment based in Thunder Bay, Ont., was
killed in a firefight as coalition troops tried to sweep Taliban insurgents
from an area west of Kandahar City. When I saw that headline, it struck me
as odd that many of us don't think of being in the Canadian military as
dangerous. During a recent interview of a World War II veteran, I asked him
how he felt about Canada's role as a  "peacekeeping nation" , and his
reaction surprised me. He shook his head and said he hated that word because
it implied that there was no danger associated with what he, and thousands
of other Canadian soldiers, have done and continue to do for this country.
I think many of us compare Canada's military fatalities to those in the
United States and think that Canada's contributions are somehow
insignificant. After all, American soldiers are dying every day in Iraq. But
is that how we should measure military significance? Are the lives of 17
Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan any less important because only 17
have been killed? As a society, we need to respect our military more. A
headline that a Canadian soldier has died for his country should not be
buried in the Canadian news because Italy won the World Cup or Pirates of
the Caribbean did well at the box office. If we don't hear about these
soldiers, it's easy to forget that they're there on behalf of us.  After
all, it takes a unique kind of person to risk his or her life for others as
a job - it's not something I would ever have the courage to do, so I guess
I'm fortunate that others in this country do.  You may or may not agree with
Canada's military involvement in other countries. You may feel that our
troops shouldn't even be in Afghanistan, Africa, or other places around the
globe. But regardless of political  opinions and feelings, soldiers leave their
friends, husbands, wives, children, and homes to go to unstable places
for extended periods of time. Col. Larry Aitken, the former Base Commander
at CFB Kingston, has been posted to Congo for an entire year - and that, in
itself, deserves our admiration.  Each time another Canadian soldier is
lost, the names and faces of those who were killed before him fade further
and further into a series of catalogues, lists, and memorial walls. We focus
on each new tragedy, and forget that one just like it  happened only weeks
ago. But the families of Paul Davis, Nichola Goddard, and Anthony Joseph
Boneca won't forget the contributions their loved ones made any time soon.
After all, they died representing Canada - and a military that doesn't get
nearly the recognition

 

[GAP]

Good Article. 

 

[Signalman150]

Jack, I agree w/ GAP: good article.  Do you have a URL for it, because it looks like the tail end of it was cut off on yr post?

Also agree that we don't want--as a nation--to become so inured to our combat casualties that we worry more about the petty stuff happening around us at home.  I think to some degree as Iraq has dragged on, folks in the US have either become numb or resigned to the daily reports of death and injury to their soldiers.  It would be dangerous for the same to happen here: even those who support Cdn inverventionin Afghanistan need to keep carefully focused on the cost.  Wallace's article goes a long way toward pointing that out.

At the going down of the sun...

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Ok, journalists who are reading this, take note how one can write a good story, without mud-raking/sensationalism and still be politically neutral. I've read the story and for all I know this writer could be extremely anti-mission right now but that doesn't need to be part of the story, the story itself is good enough.

That's all we ask...........

 

[big bad john]

Add her to the list of decent journalist's.  Good article, well written and thought out.

 

[Jack Neilson]

Signalman 150
Sorry, the paper doesn't have a webpage.  When speaking with Kristyn on the phone she confirmed that the last words of the article were correct.
Velox Versutus Vigilans
Jack

 

[paracowboy]

Ok, journalists who are reading this, take note how one can write a good story, without mud-raking/sensationalism and still be politically neutral.

ah, yes, BUT if one doesn't sensationalize, distort, and outright lie, one doesn't get to make a name for oneself (Woodward and Bernstein). One doesn't get the big bucks. One doesn't become famous.

Even should the journalist in question stick to the facts, what are the odds that the editors won't sensationalize, distort, and outright lie in order to further their own agenda, or suck up to the owner of the newspaper? Most importantly, how does a paper sell advertising space? How does a TV station sell commercial air time?

The days of true reporting are long gone. The media is an industry, and a particularly sordid one, at that.

As for this reporter, well done Ma'am. Well done indeed.

 

[Koenigsegg]

Add her to the list of decent journalist's.

That's a pretty short list, right?

Gooda article...sad when there is such a low percentage of good articles out there on our involvement.

 

[Juvat]

I agree, this is a good article.

It is a refreshing change from the negative stories being portrayed in the media these days.  If more reporters wrote the way this one did people would be better informed as to the sacrifice soldiers make while overseas.

 

[BernDawg]

Well Done. 

 

[dardt]

That article shocked me to say the least, I guess I'm so accustomed to reading all the other crap written about our Military operations in this country's Media.

+ 1  Nicely written and very refreshing

 

[MarkOttawa]

And a reasonable Bastille Day (the French love a parade) editorial in the Globe (full text not online):

Remember the stakes in the Afghan conflict
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060714.EAFGHAN14/TPStory/Comment

Excerpts:

"Is it time to give up on Afghanistan?

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization gets ready to take over command in the country's dangerous south on Aug. 1, the mood among those who are trying to put the war-torn country back on its feet has moved from hope to gloom. Things are not going well. Five years after being toppled from power, the Taliban are back with a vengeance, ambushing allied troops, setting off suicide bombs and wreaking havoc wherever they can. The drug lords are back too (indeed they never went away), confirming Afghanistan's status as the world's biggest heroin exporter and doing it right under the noses of NATO troops...

But, bad as this year has been for Afghanistan and its backers, it's not time to throw in the towel yet.

Why? To begin with, things are not quite as dire as they look. The Afghan government may not be filled with angels, but it has held together. The country has conducted two successful elections, in 2004 and 2005. Its President, Hamid Karzai, is honest and solid. Despite all the disappointments, Afghans have not turned en masse against their leaders or rebelled against the foreign troops, a remarkable fact given their history of hostility to soldiers from abroad. On the contrary, most people still seem to welcome the help of the international community. Largely because of outside help, two-thirds of Afghans now have access to health care and five million children go to school.

Military officials figure the Taliban and their militant allies command no more than 6,000 fighters in a population of 30 million. They are growing bolder, but they are also losing more men. One reason the fighting has intensified is that Canadian and other NATO forces are for the first time taking on the militants in their southern heartland. So, in a sense, the fiercer fighting is a sign of success, not failure...

To underline the good news is not to deny the bad. It would be foolish to ignore what is going wrong in Afghanistan. But it would be equally foolish to succumb to defeatism. A lot is at stake. If the vicious nihilists who lead the insurgency were to drive out the foreign coalition, the Afghan government would certainly fall. The Taliban could regain power or the country could descend into civil war. Either way, the cause of international terrorism would claim a famous victory and gain an invaluable base. With millions of hectares of opium poppies to fund them, they would be free to spread havoc around the globe.

Canada and its allies are there to prevent this from happening. Success is crucial to the world's safety (to say nothing of Afghanistan's survival). It is hard to think of a more important mission. Bad news notwithstanding, they should stick with it."

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

I thought this was quite good too (Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen, 14 Jul 06, page A15):

_______________

You can't fight this myth

As retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie and other officers noted many times this week, soldiers bitch. Always have, always will. The fact that a soldier killed in combat last Sunday had complained to family and friends about the tough, grinding work he was doing in Afghanistan is essentially meaningless. It is terribly unfair, both to the military and to the memory of the soldier, to read anything into it.

But one comment that didn't draw much attention is worth examining more closely. Dylan Bulloch, the best friend of slain soldier Cpl. Anthony Boneca, told the Citizen that Cpl. Boneca "was telling me no one wants to be there, no one knows exactly why they're there and why is Canada in a war zone when all we do is protect and peacekeep."

If Mr. Bulloch's recollection is accurate, it is troubling. Cpl. Boneca may have been a reservist, but he was still an experienced soldier and when even an experienced soldier thinks it inconceivable that he would have to fight a war because "all we do is protect and peacekeep," the military has a problem.

We Canadians love to see ourselves as the world's peacekeepers. Our soldiers wear blue berets, not helmets. They carry binoculars instead of rifles. They don't take lives -- they save them. War and killing the enemy is for Americans. Peace and protecting the weak is the Canadian way.

Peacekeeping is as central to how most Canadians see their country as universal health care, multiculturalism and hockey. It can be seen on the back of the $10 bill. It can be heard in the speeches of politicians lauding our military's "traditional role."

It is also the source of fears that the combat mission in Afghanistan is a radical departure from Canadian values. "(Prime Minister Stephen) Harper is starting to ditch the peacekeeping vocation that has been the military's primary role abroad since Lester B. Pearson," wrote Josee Legault in the Montreal Gazette. Commentators from the Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui to union leader Sid Ryan have said the same. So have countless letter writers in newspapers across the country. They are all asking why Canadian soldiers are now in a war zone when "all we do is protect and peacekeep."

It's a question born of myth.

Peacekeeping is not the "primary role" of Canada's military. It never has been. The military's primary role is, and always has been, fighting wars.

"Peacekeeping was always a sideline activity for the Canadian Armed Forces," wrote Gen. MacKenzie in the Toronto Star. "At the height of our reputation as the UN's lead nation in peacekeeping during the '60s, '70s and '80s, we had at any one time around 1,500 soldiers deployed under the UN flag. At the same time, we had up to 10,000 troops, some armed with nuclear weapons, stationed with NATO on the central front in Germany and France prepared to take on any aggression by the Soviet Union."

Senator Romeo Dallaire, the retired general whose tragic experience in Rwanda made him Canada's most famous peacekeeper, recently made the same point in these pages. "Canada's soldiers are first and foremost specialists in combat," he wrote.

A background paper on the history of Canadian peacekeeping prepared for the Somalia Inquiry put Canada's UN missions squarely into perspective. "After Lester Pearson received the Nobel Prize in 1957, peacekeeping began receiving enthusiastic public and political support, although it remained a low priority within the Department of National Defence. ... All defence white papers and intervening policy statements rank the maintenance of a combat force capable of protecting Canada's sovereignty as the primary function of the Canadian Forces, with peacekeeping as an ancillary function."

And in a very real sense, even that "ancillary function" is finished.

In Lester Pearson's formulation, peacekeeping meant putting neutral blue berets between combatants, usually states, who had agreed to a truce. It was a rare scenario during the Cold War, and since then it has all but vanished. In its place are far more complex situations, most involving civil conflict, that require "peacekeepers" to be heavily armed and prepared, in some circumstances, to take sides and fight.

Experts debate what these missions should be called, but they agree that the term "peacekeeping" is misleading and should be used with care -- or better, retired.

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Peacekeeping's hold on the Canadian imagination is too strong for mere facts. Everything I've written here has been said a thousand times before by analysts and generals and others far more qualified than me. And yet, the peacekeeping myth is flourishing.

And now, it seems, the peacekeeping myth is believed even by some of the soldiers whose primary mission is, as it always has been, fighting wars.

Dan Gardner's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

 

[GAP]

Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen, 14 Jul 06, page A15 article

They just keep hammering away at some inward vision they once had.... get over it.

No soldier I have ever known, US or Canadian, including myself and my son, ever espoused the desire to do only peacekeeping. You train to be a combat soldier, you hope to use that training, but if you don't, you do the mission you are tasked.. it's called taking orders.   The article is seemingly good, but underneath the story is the implied myth that the soldiers going over think they are doing peacekeeping.

In the article by   

Remember the stakes in the Afghan conflict

What I liked was the point being brought out that it is not time to give on Afghanistan. That's what the article left with me.

(edited comments)

 

[Jake]

Signalman150, here's a link to the article for you http://www.whatsonkingston.com/heritage/06h3.html 

 

[Centurian1985]

As retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie and other officers noted many times this week, soldiers *****. Always have, always will.

A quick side note:

Totally true statement.  They cant take away your birthday or your right to bitch.  However, IME, too many senior members treat all bitching as whining. However, bitching is the halfway point between individual whining and group revolt.  There are occasions where valid bitches need to be dealt with and not treated as meaningless, otherwise unit morale and cohesion can be seriously affected.