Discipline
* DRUNKEN MONKEY *
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A well written article about Canada
Sunday Telegraph Article
From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest nation
Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph
LONDON - Until the deaths last week of four Canadian soldiers accidentally killed by a U.S. warplane in Afghanistan, probably almost no one
outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops were deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will now 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 ourse, 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 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 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 week, four more grieving Canadian families
knew that cost all too tragically well
‘Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun. Straight through your heart.’
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Voodoobillyman
The Artist Formerly Known As...
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Mood: my daughters beautiful curiousity
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Believe me, there are plenty of American Military who are very thankful for and have had some damn good times with our Canuck counterparts. Those
Canadian VBSS teams are balls to the walls crazy!
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upyerbum
Posting Freak
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We have identity issues for sure, but we have always and will always kick ass when required. Now everyboby join in....
Oh Canada, Our home and native land.....
Well, its this place where nobody works, and the pigs don\'t give you any shit. Everyone smokes weed and gets drunk all day. Its a place where
cunts like me and you can truly take it easy and relax. Know what I mean?
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ENDERA.x
Posting Freak
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Registered: 12-2-2003
Location: Toronto
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just last night i found out Canada was involved in the Vietnam war.
How the fuck did I not know that till now... and it was totally random too I was flipping through channels and saw it on the History channel.
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moforn
Senior Member
Posts: 525
Registered: 7-13-2004
Location: Toronto
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| Quote: | Originally posted by ENDERA.x
just last night i found out Canada was involved in the Vietnam war.
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...uh, only in that we provided refuge for draft dodgers/conscientious objectors.
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upyerbum
Posting Freak
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Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
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I reckon enough Canadians headed south to make up for the Yanks who headed North.
Well, its this place where nobody works, and the pigs don\'t give you any shit. Everyone smokes weed and gets drunk all day. Its a place where
cunts like me and you can truly take it easy and relax. Know what I mean?
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ENDERA.x
Posting Freak
Posts: 1378
Registered: 12-2-2003
Location: Toronto
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Mood: Icepick
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lol ^
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