Praise for Canada

[Widow]

I received this in my inbox today. I'm sure I've seen it, or something similar go the rounds before ... but it bears repeating.

A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is
funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...
Sunday Telegraph Article From today's 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, 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 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
it's 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 past year more grieving Canadian
families knew that cost all too tragically well.

*********************
Please pass this on to any of your friends or relatives who served in the
Canadian Forces or anyone who is proud to be Canadian. Some of you may be the children of CAF personnel, who grew up with a parent who was often away for long periods of time. It is a wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country & the world in our quiet Canadian way.


Flying is the 2nd greatest thrill known to man
Landing is the 1st.

[KSDL]

Canadians are silly.

[g5]

...who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

haha!

[Lurch]

Canadians are silly.

Wow, you are trying to make friends are over the place!

Is there not a lot of fishing to be done in Arizona, so you come on here and try to land some Canadian fish?

Lurch

[Widow]

Canadians are silly.

Silly > Stupid