O/T Being Canadian...

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TPM
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O/T Being Canadian...

Post by TPM »

I thought this rather interesting. My father served in WW2 and my grandfather in WW1.


British newspaper salutes Canada. (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 wa s 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 attacks. 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 no 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 p eacekeeping 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.

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.
The most important blood trail leads to the Cross...

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maple
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Post by maple »

Good read TPM.

We Canadians don't stand up and blow our own horns nearly enough.
I know it's not our way, but I think it's because we have the greatest country on earth and we just don't want everybody else to find out. I'm not going to get into a political or international discussion here, all patriots should be proud of their country.

Interestingly, I just finished a book of Stompin Tom Connors' (all 850 pages of it!) called 'The Connors Tone', and if you think he was just a simple musician, dream on. That man has more intellect than most politicians. He's a deep thinker for sure. If you want a good read about a real Canadian, get the book. You'll be pleasantly amazed.

Stompin Tom for Senator.

Maple with a capital M
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Post by Crockett&boon »

very nice read
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dick195252
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Post by dick195252 »

Where does that put the United States Then? Under appreciated or just Dumb? Last time i looked U.S. had lost 3960 Troops next Britain at 174 in Iraq at a cost of around {Give or take a FEW BILLION} 150 BILLION of Tax Payers Dollars per year where is Canada in this Mess Bush got us into :( ?
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Post by Grizzly Adam »

Kudos to Canada for the good Canada has done.

Let us "give honor to whom honor is due" in all things.

We should do nothing less ... and never one bit more.

For all honorable actions, Canada and her people have my appreciation ... and I think many more people feel that way than this article suggests.

I don't believe I'd appreciate some Brit calling my nation a "wallflower," either! :wink: While the author has questionably emphasized only one understanding of the term, a wallflower isn't just a personality that remains on the sidelines at a social event because they are ignored by others ... a wallflower is also someone who shrinks from or rejects advances from others; many wallflowers "do it to themselves," so to speak ... that's why "shrinking violet" is a synonym of "wallflower"! If you Canucks think about it, that isn't the most complimentary thing to have said of you!

No need to feel unappreciated. Mindful people are far more aware of Canadian contributions than this writer suggests.

So ... "Thanks, Canada" ... for what you've done, are doing, and will do.

Now ... ya'll have to graciously accept that heartfelt praise from another country's son, or you truly are "wallflowers"! :wink: :lol:
Grizz
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Post by Fork Horn »

dick195252 wrote:Where does that put the United States Then? Under appreciated or just Dumb? Last time i looked U.S. had lost 3960 Troops next Britain at 174 in Iraq at a cost of around {Give or take a FEW BILLION} 150 BILLION of Tax Payers Dollars per year where is Canada in this Mess Bush got us into :( ?
Canada is where Bush should have sent your troops, Afghanistan where Al Quita is and the peaple responsable for 9/11 came from.
I can only hope for all the good boys and girls fighting for the great U.S.A you next government can get out of that hole fast!!!

God Bless ALL of OUR Solders !!!!
Thank you for serving for us
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Every time you kill a coyote an angel gets a set of wings. OK, I made that up. But it should be the case.
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