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I was forwarded this e-mail, and seeing as it is Remembrance day, I thought it would be nice to share with you. I will say, I may be reading it wrong, but there seems to be a tad bit of negativity towards our great neighbours to the south in this. BUT.....right or wrong, they don't know'em like we do, so we can take it with a grain of salt, and just enjoy the read. Yes?
This was published in "The Sunday Telegraph" out of London, by a man named Kevin Myers.
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Salute to a brave, and modest nation
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, Mike Weir 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 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.
Lest we forget.
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Pretty good, eh? I think, prehaps, it explained alot about why the Canadian psyche is the way it is. I also believe, that if there are any other nations on this planet that might actually "get" us, naturally, it would be the UK. The others, would be the Aussies, followed closely by the majority of the American population. You know, the ones that don't actually think we're a bunch of communists up here.
I applaud that offering and would also ask anyone to google Kap Yong and the contributions of the PP2CLI who could arguably be credited with stopping the communist advance below the 38th after "another" country's troops abandoned two hills of significance because they had encountered extreme difficulties in holding onto them.
Canadians and Australians along with New Zealander artillary support moved into those positions to watch South Korean troops retreat in droves through their positions ahead of the communist chinese advance.
Some 30,000 chinese troops were committed to taking those hills and although the Australian troops had to eventually abandon their position, the Canadians held their position and drove off multiple attacks by forces vastly outnumbering them by calling artillary onto their own postions for one entire night of action to the point the NZ artillary thought they were going to lose their guns to barrel meltdowns.
In the end the chinese troops gave up with enormous losses and stopped their advance.
Those Canadians and Aussies along with the NewZealanders were recoginzed by Eisenhower awarding them Unit Citations; the only foreign troops to be awarded that recognition by the U.S.
You won't see Eastwood make a movie of that little fracas because unlike this latest offering from Hollywood depicting our rescue of American Diplomatic Staff from Iranian militants as an American endeavour, It would require too much American humility to make a movie that would make "Hamburger Hill" look like a veritable cake walk by comparison.
You won't see Eastwood make a movie of that little fracas because unlike this latest offering from Hollywood depicting our rescue of American Diplomatic Staff from Iranian militants as an American endeavour, It would require too much American humility to make a movie that would make "Hamburger Hill" look like a veritable cake walk by comparison.
That ain't likely to ever happen.
As if there are no Canadian producers to make a movie about Canadian war heroism!
As if there are no Canadian producers to make a movie about Canadian war heroism!
Lots of producers. No audience. Who in the states would care about Dieppe, or Vimy? Peacekeeping isn't sexy. Heck Rob Furlong's shot would probably be re-cast as an American.
Lots of producers. No audience. Who in the states would care about Dieppe, or Vimy? Peacekeeping isn't sexy. Heck Rob Furlong's shot would probably be re-cast as an American.
They would compete for the same bandwitdth as Hollywood blockbusters, and they couldn't compete on a marketing level at all. The best productions have come out as TV specials, but again that is only for domestic consumption.
Yes, but as Mikeyyc mentioned, the best productions have come out as TV specials, mostly for domestic consumption. If you're interested you might try the National Film Board of Canada online for Canadian films, documentaries and specials.
I think the British writer may be projecting some of his own country's obliviousness of Canada on the Americans. Despite being the mother country, studies show that the British are completely blind to Canada and that while knowledge about Canada is low internationally, the Americans know much more about us than do other countries, including the UK. I wish I could dig up the study I read this in years ago but I can't seem to find it.
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