So...the comment was welcome on two scores. Someone else was interested and vastly better informed on the topic.
My focus is on the lives at risk and family devastation.
It still is.
I can't imagine when and where the protective devices listed in the comment may have been tested and proved effective in actual battle.
I don't trust the military easily.
I grew up during the Second World War. I believe,more than anything else, propaganda and Winston Churchill sustained the British long enough to outlast the Germans.
It certainly wasn't Americans alongside.
Poles rode out on horses to meet German tanks. The French had the Maginot Line which was never utilised because the Quisling government signed an early Concordat with the Nazis.
The British were totally unprepared. Churchill had been dismissed as a warmonger until the day war was declared.
After it was over, books and movies mostly told of epic battles and stories of individual bravery. There was no shortage of material. Much of it could not be told during the hostilities.
I was an avid reader and movies were a favourite past time. Even when there was no heat in the cinemas and regular power outages meant the movie was cut off.
Oh how the misery lasted for years after.
Long ago, I came to my own private conclusion, there are no winners in war: no genius is employed.
Losers are decided by whichever side makes the most or last mistake and resources are exhausted.
And of course, hundreds of thousands of dead, on all sides.
At the end, German boys were taken from their classrooms, put Into uniform and sent to the Russian front. Allied soldiers were shooting German children.
Hostilities between the States and Japan ended when the Atom Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the full horror was realised.
When the war ended in Europe, the Americans brought German scientists to the States to continue
the race to be first to develop the atom bomb
The lessons unevenly learned, are long forgotten.
As far as Trump and the American military are concerned, the Second World War and it's dreadful consequences might never have taken place.
There were no winners : no gold, silver or bronze medalists.
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It is like being on the Titanic and watching icebergs float past. Scary days for all of us.
And then we have those like that pompous, arrogant minister of defense who claimed that he was an "architect" in a key battle against the Taliban. He is no better than all those other crazies around the world, that continually beat their chests like gorilla's trying to prove who's bigger and better. His title of "Honourable" should never be used with his name again.
I'm sure many would agree that there aren't any winners in war, but Sajjan thinks otherwise. Apparently he believes that he was an architect to Operation Medusa. I wonder what the families of those 12 brave Canadian soldiers think he is.
Why is anybody surprised by Sajan. After all he is a Liberal. The party that gave us a cabinet minister hailed to be from Afghanistan but actually born in Iran or better yet Jag Bhaduria
Recently we were barraged by articles and photographs about the 100th anniversary of the battle for Vimy Ridge.
Many of these have referred to the event as nation-building.
I see nothing in the wanton slaughter and dismemberment of thousands of young men as having contributed to the building of Canada.
Is this now a part of the myth?
I didn't understand the whole Nation Building thing either. It sounds a lot like the bullshit we typically hear from politicians these days.
to 19:33 and 18:40....
The "Nation Building" that occurred at Vimy is a topic that came up a lot over the last few months in preparation for the centennial, however I think you must go back 100 years to fully understand the rationale.
In the first few years of the Great War, the Canadian units deployed in France and Belgium were under the control of British Army Generals. They (as well as other Commonwealth units) were considered mere extensions of the British Army. Vimy Ridge was the first battle that all four Canadian divisions were combined into a common force. The "nation building" was really the unification of these units. After the successful battle of Vimy Ridge the British High-Command realized that the Canadians can be a force on their own. To that end, there eventually was the assigning the Canadians a leadership that was Canadian too. No longer a part of the British, they were a force of their own.
Back on the home front in 1917, the success of the Vimy battle was seen as a successful unification of Canadians from all corners of the country. Also, remember that all of these men were volunteers - there was no conscription at this time.
As some background information. My Grandfather and great-uncle (his bother) both came to Canada from northern England in 1905. Both were married (my grandfather with 2 daughters) enlisted into the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) in late 1915. They shipped out to England in the summer of 1916. In January 1917, my grandfather was wounded in a battle south of Vimy that was meant as a rehearsal for Vimy. He missed the Vimy battle, but my great-uncle fought and was wounded at Vimy, and continued with all of the major battles for the rest of the war and even served in the occupation forces post 11/11/18.
It is unfortunate that the current political talking heads try to wrap themselves in a flag and talk about nation-building hen they really do not know what they are talking about.
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