Veterans are outraged. Now they need to do what they once did best. Lead. Part 3.

Unification, led by Paul Helleyer in 1968 and permitted by Lester Pearson, was a wound most veterans still bear. Initially intended as a modernization to bring three separate services under one joint operational roof, it steam-rolled well beyond the original plan to create a single service which was purportecly able to share resources and personnel across the the three combat elements. It was to become a dumb idea championed by a self-aggrandizing fool who today sees aliens in his cereal bowl. But the damage to morale, traditions and the ethos of the services was extensive. So extensive, in fact, that when veterans look back at the past several decades they are unable to connect the last major re-equipping of the armed forces with the prime minister that actually did it: Pierre Trudeau. And they are just as blinded to the fact that Brian Mulroney, despite all the typical conservative rhetoric, sold off critical combat capability during his tenure.

Let's end the history lesson there and get to the point of this whole discussion. Veterans are now the recipients of some of the shabbiest treatment ever at the hands of the federal government and the fault lays, not just with Julian Fantino, but with Harper himself.

Harper, always prepared to pump Canadian military history for the lazy patriotic vote it garners, is a tribalist, self-centered, sociopath. Fantino was his perfect hatchet-man. But make no mistake about it, what is being done to veterans now is very much calculated by Harper and the elitists who surround him.

Of the roughly 1.1 million Canadians and Newfoundlanders who served in the 2nd World War, less than 90,000 are alive today. At an average age of 90, those veterans are dying in the hundreds per month. Korea veterans, a much smaller group, have all but vanished. No veteran of the 1914 - 1918 Great War survives. In short, the corps of veterans from the declared wars and Korea is shrinking rapidly.Veterans from the Cold War era, Gulf War 1, peacekeeping and Afghanistan do not constitute the same numbers as the large group that returned from the world wars and, (get ready for this), the Harperites don't really consider them veterans in the same light anyway. Those veterans do not meet the Conservative fetish of military glory associated with the big total wars. If you don't believe me, replay some of Fatino's interviews where he tries to minimize the standing of today's veterans by elevating the risk and contribution of municipal police, himself included. He's trying, along with Harper, to make national service, with a full combat liability, no more than police work.

And we all know, for a multitude of reasons, it is not, and never will be, the same thing. Julian Fantino never once deployed for the better part of a year to any one of the world's shit-holes. Ever. We did it with all too familiar regularity.

So, here's the thing, (and you need to absorb this one fully). What Harper is doing to veterans is NOT singularly unique. What he is doing to you, he is doing to everyone. He has shattered the Canadian public service. He is destroying labour law in this country. His myopic focus on creating a petro-state (in Alberta) has promoted accelerated rust-out in the Canadian manufacturing sector. Essential middle-income jobs are being destroyed in the most populated areas of the country in favour of corporate wealth generation from wanton resource extraction. You are just another domino to fall in a long line of tiles. Complaining loudly will do one thing: he'll do what he can to silence you faster.

It's not that Harper doesn't care about you. Harper doesn't care about anybody. He consults nobody outside his elitist circle; he accepts no advice; he answers no questions. When cornered, he runs for cover and hides.

Veterans are in a decidedly exceptional position, should they (we) choose to exploit it. We have always been there for Canadians and we have nothing to hide. And Canadians in general appreciate that we have honestly done our duty on behalf of this country in the best interest of our country.

Do what you have always done best. Lead, and accept nothing short of a fully completed mission.

A majority of Canadians sympathize with veterans. They do not accept the mistreatment and the abuse at the hands of a sociopath. They are watching you. They want to see what you are going to do.

There is a strong belief that if your loud protestations garner some kind of pay off, that you'll take it and resume your seat at the camp table. That would leave the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have had their lives and dreams crushed by Harper's policies sorely disappointed. And you will have lost them forever.

Do the right thing. Get out front. If you never want another Fantino, you have to gather your forces, muster your strength, fight off the fear and get rid of the whole force from which the Fatinos originate.

You need to suck it up and realize that you are only one segment of the population which has been kicked in the genitals. You need to organize and slam Harper hard. So hard that he is totally and completely de-stooled.

If you do not do this, Harper will be back, even if he pays you off this time, and he will do untold amounts of damage. Your meager pension will not withstand the financial assault he will carry out on you if he is returned to government. Do you like your health care plan? He'll kill it. Do you expect to get Old Age Security? It will be gone. Don't believe me? Ask a 55 year old when they get to access their Canada Pension Plan? No one figured on that one but Harper ripped it away from them.

It is time that you considered all of those Canadians you never saw when you were in Bosnia, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, the Golan Heights, Cyprus, Haiti, Cambodia, Viet Nam and any number of places where bullets flew until we took the lead and realized that they want you to get out front, look them in the eyes and say, follow me.

You don't have a lot of time. If you think Harper is going to wait until the fall of 2015 to go to the electorate, you're not paying attention. He is under so much pressure that he could trigger an election at any moment. Never mind the "fixed election date". He's already broken that law once before. All the signs are there and if you're not ready, he'll trample you.

You need to look at the door to your front and realize that it could open at any moment and expose you to a hail of hostile fire. So, get organized and lead. Make your issue big and make it a part of the bigger issue. Harper is not and never will be your friend. He lives in a world where hatred and ignorance are political weapons. You can defeat him and deny him his weapons. Quit worrying about who replaces him. We've all been in situations in far flung places where victory meant we got rid of the nasty prick in the chair without knowing what came afterwards.

You've done it before.

Do it now. Lead.

Veterans are outraged. Now they need to do what they once did best. Lead. Part 2.

There is a commonly held misconception that all members of Canada's armed services and, by extension, discharged veterans are Conservative supporters. That, of course, is simply not true on more than one plane.

What is true, is that many voted for Harper and his uber-right-wing thugs based on a load of false propaganda, seriously limited information, and for purely selfish reasons, (which is why we all vote in a specific direction). It would not be a stretch to say that most members of the armed services had little use for Chretien and his Liberals long before the general electorate swung away from them. Chretien was viewed, (with good reason), as being anti-armed forces and if you're in the service you're going to fight back with the only tool allowed armed service personnel in a democracy: your big X against the name of someone who isn't going to return a Liberal government. That meant Paul Martin, despite making some immediate and needed course corrections when it came to the Canadian Forces, didn't stand a chance amongst CF voters. But that's more history than an explanation.

The truth is most members of the armed services are pretty apolitical, especially in their early years of service. When a kid joins the service he/she is not politically engaged and definitely doesn't possess a political ideology. Young (put any political party name here) ideologues don't, as a rule, join the armed services, particularly during peacetime. It would interfere with their ability to get inside the political machine. And, although this is likely to create a poo-flinging session, my long association with armed services has taught me that among those few young service members who do have a political view, none of them are conservative of the Harper ilk. That kind of young person avoids military service like a plague, although there is an exception I'll identify later.

Service in the navy, army or air-force is very insular. Long deployments, active service and isolated bases mean limited interaction with the civilian community. A very different lifestyle leads many service personnel to further isolate themselves (and their families) from too much civilian contact. Politics becomes dirty, invasive and unwanted. Politicians are viewed as dirty, invasive and unwanted. A majority of service personnel therefore distrust all politicians. Political interest only arises when it directly affects serving individuals or the organization to which they belong. Thus, political motivation depends on how they view the treatment offered by the gang in place at the time. Disband an airborne regiment, lose the votes of the entire army and likely chase them into the arms of the first party who says we'd never have done that. Cut the defence budget so deeply that there are not enough crews to man ships, lose the votes of the entire navy with the same end result.

Veterans are odd creatures. They have a tendency to take those particular political views and emotions with them on the final walk out the main gate and there is a good chance they'll hang on to them for decades. They maintain an emotional affinity with their former service that most civilians do not fully comprehend. It is born out of the fact that while serving they were a part of more than just an organization. The people they served with were and are a part of a very close-knit family with intentional barriers preventing those who did not serve from ever entering the deep centre of the military psyche. You didn't serve? You don't ever get to be a part of the ethos and no one is ever going to explain it to you.

So, it will likely come as something of a shock when I tell you that in the 1960s prior to Paul Helleyer committing the heinous crime that was Unification, most service personnel found themselves voting Liberal.

You see, Diefenbaker was a tough pill to swallow. He had done little to foster the armed services. Pay was poor and conditions were not improving. Cancellation of the AVRO Arrow iced Dief in the eyes of many service personnel. That and a long held belief that the Liberals were a better option for significant pay raises and an improvement in conditions put them ahead in the minds of people who had endured enough of Diefenbaker's draconian austerity measures, most of which had to do with keeping service personnel impoverished.

There was something else. The Liberals under Louis St. Laurent had engaged in a purpose-bent re-equipment program. Diefenbaker inherited a modernized or modernizing armed forces as a result of the government which preceded his. That fact was not lost on the long service veterans who were starting to leave the service in the 1960s and taking their political affinity for the Liberals with them.

Here, I'll end part 2. Part 3 will be a little longer in coming. 

Veterans are outraged. Now they need to do what they once did best. Lead. Part 1.

There is no doubt Canadian veterans have been treated in the most vile way possible by one of the most ignorant people in the Harper government. Julian Fantino has demonstrated, quite clearly, that he feels a greater duty to his benefactor, Harper, than he does to the armed services veterans his department is mandated to assist. In fact, his recent behaviour demonstrates a total disdain for veterans. He believed he could appear at a time of his choosing and start issuing orders. This to a group who, now no longer in uniform, would loudly tell a serving general where to go if they didn't like what was being said. Fantino forgot, (or perhaps has never understood) who it is he actually works for. Not surprising, actually. Fantino has a long and documented history of being a dangerously stupid person with too much power which he felt was his to abuse and then to attack anyone who shone a light on his activities.

Some people are giving Fantino credit for "sincerely apologizing" to veterans for the spectacle he created. Except that it wasn't a sincere apology and accepting any part of it would be a huge mistake. Professor Stephen Kimber explains why.

Sincerely? In the next breath, Fantino was bitching to his stenographers at the Toronto Sun that the multi-medalled, wheel-chaired vets had been “duped… jacked up” by the union representing public servants who will lose their jobs and who had paid the veterans’ airfare to Ottawa.
When those mindless-dupe vets failed to show Fantino the due deference he required, he told the Sun, “I wasn’t just going to play dead.”

Keeping in mind, of course, that on one of Fantino's previous yap-sessions with those same stenographers he tried to paint himself into the same frame as a combat veteran. That should have told the veterans who attempted to meet with him that such endeavours were likely to fail. Fantino, who does not know how to control his authoritarian impulses, views himself as a hero. A self-styled hero who brooks no protest without his explicit permission.

Fantino clearly does not understand veterans. Worse though, is that he expects veterans to kneel before him and then be grateful for his very existence. His style is to issue orders; not to listen. And he further insults veterans by telling them they have been "duped" by the public service union, PSAC.

Really? Duped by the very union veterans watched like hawks when they were serving? The same union whose collective wage and benefit package formed the basis for the Canadian Forces compensation and benefit negotiations with the Treasury Board? Ya think?!!

If there's been any "duping" going on it's been by Harper and company, Fantino included. They have made a point of positioning themselves as "friends of the forces" and the "protectors of veterans", all without having done much except make loud noises about it. While the Harperites have been diligent in making certain they applied a nice shiny surface paint job, they have been hacking away at personnel, cutting pay and benefits, cancelling equipment acquisition and fighting against veterans attempting to hang on to disability benefits.

Not to mention the biggest duping of all. Harper, on Sunday, 1 March 2009, on CNN in the U.S., (he never says this kind of thing where a Canadian can get at him), told Fareed Zakaria that the war in Afghanistan was futile. And rather than call the Chief of Defence Staff and require that all Canadian troops be withdrawn to a safe area, he continued to knowingly send Canadian kids to their death. That made them cannon fodder and it highlighted Harper as a dangerous sociopath. Fantino too, is a sociopath but with perhaps a more lingering aroma of corruption.

And here ends part 1. 

Veterans Week

Murray Brewster :

"A trove of leaked internal Veterans Affairs documents suggests bureaucrats knew from the beginning that a new system of benefits would mean less cash for injured soldiers with one analysis projecting savings of up to $40 million per year.
Another analysis, contained among 3,500 pages obtained by The Canadian Press, raised concern that some disabled veterans might be forced back to work or to take up part-time jobs to supplement their income."

Stogran is out of his job on Remembrance Day. As Rick says : "Stogran stood up for veterans. Where are the MPs who are going to stand up for him?"

Well?

Veterans Week begins November 6. On Nov 6th at 11:00, veterans across Canada are gathering at MP's offices to voice their concerns about the new system. Come out and support them and throw up a fist for Stogran .

.

Screwing our veterans since 2006

On the list of recently fired Veterans Ombudsman Col. Pat Stogran’s complaints was Ottawa’s decision to institute lump sum payments for injured soldiers.

FAIR : "For almost a century prior to April 2006, Canada honoured the non-fatal sacrifices suffered by our men and women in uniform with a lifelong tax-free disability pension. Since April 1, 2006, injured soldiers, including most non-fatal casualties from Afghanistan receive a one-time lump sum amount to compensate for their lifelong injuries."

So what kind of money are we talking with that lump sum?
Via David Pugliese we learn that 19 year old Cpl. Martin Renaud lost both legs below the knee to an IED in Afghanistan. His lump sum for "pain and suffering" was $250,000, nearly the maximum amount.

The old charter guaranteed monthly pension payments for life that increased if a condition worsened. Under the new charter, disabled veterans who follow a rehabilitation program will receive a lump payment and a monthly cheque representing 75 per cent of their "pre-release" salary until they find a job in civilian life.
If they are too injured to work, they receive 75 per cent of their salary until age 65

As noted by a commenter there : if Renaud lives to be 80, that $250,000 works out to about $4000 a year or $ 341.53 a month. Or $11 a day. Or three coffees a day. For a lifetime of pain and suffering.

But Veterans Affairs Minister Jean Pierre Blackburn assures us that veterans are happy with the lumpsum payment plan:

"Our survey indicates that the lump sum award is the preferred option for 69 percent of those veterans who have received this benefit. This shows us that the changes that were made in 2006 were the right thing to do."

About Blackburn's 69% approval rating on his survey ...

Back to retired Canadian Forces Intelligence Officer Sean Bruyea at FAIR :

"...only 11% of the lump sum recipients completed the survey and not one of the more than 100,000 veterans who receive the lifelong disability pension were contacted.
The average lump sum paid out to injured soldiers over the past five years has been less than $40,000."

h/t Holly Stick in comments

Harper's MPs should start counting license plates.

The ones that look something like this one. In a riding like Saanich-Gulf Islands, those plates are everywhere. Then they should ask themselves whether they could even get themselves elected to the executive of the local kennel club once this starts to gather headway.

Impolitical finds the connection in a letter to the editor from that very riding.

Four years of cheating veterans

That little shit 'Support the troops' Steve has been using our tax dollars to fight veterans' claims.

Write your MP and demand that Veterans Ombudsman Col. Pat Stogran be re-instated to continue his work on behalf of veterans like Bryan Dick and their families. And when parliament resumes I want to see MPs standing in the House reading out those letters.

Up yours, Harper

The next time some mouth-breathing Harper sycophant tries to hide behind the troops or waves some ridiculous fridge-magnet in your face ask them a few questions.

Ask them if they've ever driven down a road possessed of the fear that the road might explode underneath their vehicle - without warning.

Ask them if they've ever had their tools shatter in sub-zero temperatures as they worked to get an aircraft off the ground in five minutes.

Ask them if they've had to try to refuel a ship in storm force winds while remaining underway.

Ask them if they've had to jump out of the way of a blacked-out armoured vehicle in the pitch darkness.

Ask them if they have the slightest clue what a "deployment" means to someone serving this country.

Then ask them to define "veteran".

When they fuck it up, tell them to go read Sean Bruyea's piece.

... we need to start off understanding the term “veteran.” Contrary to popular belief, in Canada, a “veteran” is any Canadian who wore a military uniform. As such, there are almost 600,000 veterans living among us who never served in the Second World War. [...]

There is a greater issue here and that is Canada’s willingness to make fiscal sacrifices to care for those injured soldiers or veterans who have already sacrificed so much in Canada’s name. Why is it that the total veteran population in Canada is twice that of Australia, yet Australia provides benefits for twice as many veterans and dependents as Canada? At $12-billion, Australia’s budget for veterans is almost four times as great as Canada’s.

[...]

Veterans have run out of answers as to why their sacrifices are treated with such neglect or even cavalier disregard.

Perhaps it all comes down to controlling the message by playing with words. By not defining the word “veteran” in the media, ministers and bureaucrats can erase not just the existence of Canada’s collective memory of what was accomplished and sacrificed by our 600,000 CF veterans, but the government can save money by not funding programs or keeping employees to care for and assist so many veterans who have been forgotten for far too long.

Which is why veterans, when they finally have a champion, get more than a little irritated when their voice is muffled.

Pat Stogran joins the long list of those who spoke truthfully to the Harper government and paid the price for doing so.

Pat Stogran, however, isn't going quietly. Nor should he.

Veteran ombudsman Pat Stogran plans to leave his job with all guns blazing, turning the spotlight on the federal bureaucrats who he says are failing the country's veterans and highlighting the uphill battle injured soldiers and others face in trying to get the benefits they deserve.

UPDATE: The good colonel opens fire. (h/t Boris)

And helicopters. Will there also be helicopters?

Ottawa wants Vancouver organizers to include Afghan veterans in torch relay

"Ottawa is urging the Vancouver Winter Olympics organizing committee to put the Afghanistan war at the heart of the symbolically laden torch relay, saying that the first torch carriers could be veterans of the seven-year-old conflict."

Well at least now we know what was meant by that 2010 Federal Secretariat memo revealed last week : the one in which the Harper government provided $20-million for the opening ceremony of the Winter Games and $25-million grant for the torch relay to "ensure that the event adequately reflects the priorities of the Government and helps to achieve its domestic and international branding goals."

There's no reason the veterans shouldn't be part of the relay if they want to; it's the part about "international branding goals" that's going to piss off those of us who don't support Operation Enduring Freedom delivered as a Really Big Red Friday Event.

The memo from the 2010 Federal Secretariat also urges the Vancouver Olympics organizers to have two torch bearers, presumably the final torch bearers -- one French, one English.
What, no First Nations?

This bit amused me, though : there will be a total of 12,ooo relay torch bearers and "VANOC says it will select each torch bearer based on their articulation of Olympic ideals...."
Now why does that sound like the Miss America Pageant?
"Well, I want to be an actress or a neurosurgeon and have a pony and um, work for world peace."

Fun Fact : The tradition of the Olympic torch relay originated at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Summer Games as a propaganda exercise.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Bush screws the troops. (Again)

If you're in the US military, you might have been expecting a pay raise. In fact, if you were in the US military, you might have been expecting an expansion of some benefits.

Certainly, the United States Congress passed a bill which would have seen the US military receive a raise in pay and allowances, improvements to military health benefits, expanded health care for those wounded in action, improvements in the care, management and transition of recovering veterans, improvements in family housing and on and on and on. And, the bill passed both houses of Congress with solid majorities.

But, if you're serving in the US military or are a veteran no longer on active service, you're going to be disappointed.

George W. Bush, in an unannounced move and with no warning or negotiation, said that he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.

At the behest of the Iraqi government, President Bush has vetoed the annual defense authorization bill, saying an obscure provision in the legislation could make Iraqi assets held in U.S. banks vulnerable to lawsuits.

The veto startled Democratic congressional leaders, who believe Bush is bowing to pressure from the Iraqi government over a provision meant to help victims of state-sponsored terrorism. The veto was unexpected because there was no veto threat and the legislation passed both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly.

At issue is section 1083 of the bill which amends Chapter 97 of title 28 of the US Code by removing the jurisdictional immunity of foreign states from US courts when that state is alleged to have sponsored terrorism.

The Iraqi government has a problem since the Bush administration has declared that Iraq, prior to the US invasion was designated as a state sponsoring terrorism. The same goes for Afghanistan. What that essentially does is open the door for law suits against the Iraqi government and the possible freezing of Iraqi assets held in US financial institutions.

The Iraqi's have threatened, if the bill passes, to withdraw all funds from US banks. That would be some big bucks - in the billions.

At issue is a provision deep in the defense authorization bill, which would essentially allow victims of state sponsored terrorism to sue those countries for damages. The Iraqi government believes the provision, if applied to the regime of Saddam Hussein, could target up to $25 billion in Iraqi assets held in U.S. banks. Iraq has threatened to pull all of its money out of the U.S. banking system if the provision remains in the bill.

All of this came as a surprize to both houses of Congress since Bush had made no indication that a veto was in the offing.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was angered that the White House decided on a veto long after the bill passed both chambers of Congress.

"It is unfortunate that the administration failed to identify the concerns upon which this veto is based until after the bill had passed both houses on Congress and was sent to the President for signature," Levin said. "I am deeply disappointed that our troops and veterans may have to pay for their mistake and for the confusion and uncertainty caused by their snafu.”

What is so unusual about this pending veto is that the White House almost always telegraphs a veto threat while a bill is under consideration so that changes can be made to the legislation to avoid a veto. This defense bill passed the House 370-49 and cleared the Senate on a 90-3 vote. According to Democratic leadership aides, the Bush administration did not raise any objections about the section in question until after the bill was transmitted to the White House.

Cool. He used SNAFU. An apt description of the Bush administration. Situation Normal. All Fucked Up.

Hey! Don't worry about it all that much. I'm sure the Commander Guy will make it all up to the troops by serving them a special Valentine's Day meal.

H/T Crooks and Liars

Larry Craig and his war with veterans

In light of this situation, the actions of toe-tapping Larry Craig deserve a quick look.

Senator Larry "I have a wide stance" Craig, R-Idaho, has garnered a great deal of attention for his solicitation of an undercover cop in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. But, aside from the hypocrisy, his sexual orientation is quite frankly, irrelevant.

No, Larry Craig had it in for the Veterans Administration. Craig was chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee when he tried to have the ban on competitive outsourcing at VA health and hospital facilities lifted.

Craig would have had veterans' health care go to HMOs and private care operators, the lowest bidders in most cases. He claimed it was fiscally responsible and that the VA needed to be measured against the US private health care system. He pointed out that the VA's performance indicators were low.

I guess they were. When the chairman of the committee responsible for oversight allows the person responsible for ensuring efficiency and good management to play missionary while drawing a large government salary, I would agree - there is indeed a performance problem.

(Hat tip - Chris)

Witness

Last Monday was Memorial Day in the United States. To many Americans it represents the unofficial start of Summer and involves picnics and social gatherings. Indianapolis gets lively.

To others Memorial Day has a meaning quite apart from celebration, big-store sales and 500 mile motorsport races. It is a time to remember lost family members. And to many it is a day to reflect on past events and lost comrades.

It is difficult for veterans of war to speak of the bad days. When they do, it's for a variety of different reasons. Sometimes it's self-therapy, sometimes it's the need to experience an irrational feeling of guilt, sometimes it's an attempt to verify one's very participation in something that, in the end, probably wasn't necessary and sometimes, it's just to provide a picture of war others will never know if the only exposure they have is a television or a video game.

These stories come from two veterans of war. Read on and feel the absence of glory. Learn.
From Rez Dog:

I really never knew him but he has been my companion for many years.
Some say he was an asshole jerk. I can't say for sure.
All I know is that the brief time we were together left a lasting impression.
You see, I watched him die.

His death was not dramatic or heroic. Just dumb.
An accident in a war filled with many accidents.
The difference was that I saw it happen.
I watched him die.

He fell out of a helicopter that was his ticket to safety.
A medical evacation for a minor cut,
Hardly even a wound,
A convenient excuse to get out of the jungle.

But nobody expected him to die.
We watched him rising toward the chopper
Cursing his good fortune, each of us
Wishing that we were ascending in his place.

The chopper's big rotors slapped the air
As it hovered above the moutainside.
Its turbines screaming,
Waiting to carry him back to the rear.

I saw the medic leaning out of the door.
I saw the medic reach out to pull him in.
I saw him put his feet on the skids.
And I saw him fall away from the chopper.

He fell abruptly, violently.
No slo mo effect. No eternity to reach the ground.
Just a rapid free fall and a bone crunching THUD.
Mere seconds ended his life at 19.

We wrapped him in a poncho
And hooked him to the cable again.
This time he made it,
Boots pointing upward as they disappeared into the open door.

But this time was too late.
The chopper carried away a corpse,
Leaving us to our thoughts, black and evil.
No one wanted to trade places with him now.

All these years I've remembered his fall
And seen his body break upon
That nameless mountain.
All these years his death has been my companion.

I did not know him well
But he remains with me still.
Even now all I really know is that I saw him die.
That seems to be more than enough.

And from Minstrelboy:

Timmy was following all the rules I had taught him. He wasn't on the trails, he was walking carefully through the heavier brush. He stepped on a mine anyway. We all froze and began to carefully crawl to where he was. One leg was completely blown off and he was bleeding badly. I called to him to lie still. He didn't. He was screaming in pain and fear and he was trying frantically to locate his lower leg. He triggered another mine, this time with his torso. That killed him.

We carefully worked our way to his body without setting off any other mines. By that time a chopper with a medical team had landed nearby. All we were able to do was to get his entire body collected. The chopper team guys came and started to put Timmy into a body bag. I told them to stop. They looked at me in annoyance. That was as far as they went with their expression. I guess the look on my face suggested to them that silence was the safest course of action.

I put him into the bag myself. Slowly. Gently. Then, before transferring his torso to the bag, I took my canteen and a scrap of Timmy's field blouse. I washed his face and put his cap on. Then I handed his dog tags to the chopper crew. I told them "Thank you for that moment. Carry on."

I wrote to Timmy's family to tell them how sorry I was that their son had been killed. Later, once I was out and back in the world I stopped in to meet them and invite them to a show that I was playing there.

For a couple of weeks, in a brutal war zone, the presence of one young man made an impact on me that I doubt I have been able to describe. Just by being young and clean he drew me out of a very thick, hard shell that I had formed. By being an innocent he reminded me that there was still some innocence left in the world.

The petty warrior who hides behind his shield and shows naught to his foe, for he is truly a coward

Updated

Ted has it. Jeff has it. Scott has it. Paladia has it. Canadian Cynic has it. And now, I've got it. It's an unrestrained sense of disgust at the actions of the little creep who deigns to present himself as a prime minister after this was disclosed.

Global National offers the latest example of the Harper government's pathetic, all-consuming partisanship. Parenthetically, Stephen Harper's trip to the Netherlands, at Paul Martin's invitation, when Harper was leader of the opposition, was one of the few foreign trips of Harper's life to that point:

That's just the start.

KEVIN NEWMAN: The battle of Vimy Ridge in World War I is considered by historians as the moment Canada earned its right to call itself a nation through its valour and sacrifice. In just over a week, the Prime Minister will help unveil a new memorial at a 90th remembrance ceremony on Vimy Ridge, but as Hannah Boudreau reveals exclusively tonight, politics appears to be at play in deciding who will attend.

NORMAN ATKINS (Senator Independent): That was taken after, you see the sergeant stripes.

HANNAH BOUDREAU (Reporter): Senator Norman Atkins father was a 24 year old gunner who fought on that famous April day in 1917.

ATKINS: My father was a veteran of Vimy Ridge. He fought for the 46th Queens Battery.

BOUDREAU: While Sergeant George Atkins was overseas, he kept a diary detailing his experiences and in typical soldier fashion, the entry for April ninth simply reads put over a barrage this morning, 5:00. The Canadians took Vimy Ridge a flying, took a lot of prisoners, etc. Ninety years later, there are no Vimy veterans alive to celebrate the anniversary, but Senator Atkins feels that with such a direct connection to that day, he would surely be included in Canada's official delegation attending the ceremonies in Vimy.

ATKINS: I am very surprised that I wasn't invited to go with the Minister of Veteran's Affairs. Any list that he could put together, I should have been one that would be considered.

BOUDREAU: But Senator Atkins wasn't the only one left out. None of the opposition leaders were invited, either. And it's by no means a small delegation. The list of people who did make the cut are former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, her husband, John Ralston Saul, and Public Works minister, Michael Fortier. It's not like the Conservative government is just following tradition. To commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE Day, former Prime Minister Paul Martin included all three opposition leaders on his trip to the Netherlands.

Let there be no mistake about it here. A mere low-life politician has just highjacked an event commemorating the sacrifice made by thousands of Canadians for his own, smarmy political advancement.

Why don't we put Harper right where he belongs on this. During his last trip to Vimy Ridge, overlooking a Canadian battlefield, Harper saw fit to lecture reporters as though he had some first-hand knowledge and insight:

"These were sand, not cement," Harper said of the reconstructed sandbags. "And the enemy carried guns, not cameras," he added, looking directly over the lip of the old trench at a small clutch of Canadian TV and still cameras.

Ah, the great leader of the warrior class educating the masses. Except that the enemy carried rifles; not guns. Only a no-account, soft-palmed, flat-face would call a rifle a gun. And that is exactly what constitutes Stephen Harper. His self-aggrandizing warriorism is a cover for deeply ingrained cowardice and self-interest. He is a comic-book combatant who would curl into a little ball if he had to face anything remotely similar to what the troops at Vimy Ridge had to face.

This education Harper is providing everyone is little more than bathtub bravado. Of the millions of Canadians who have served Canada in uniform, one thing is certain: Stephen Harper wasn't one of them. His contrived displays of insincere empathy are sickening. His politicization of an event at which he should feel eminently privileged to be allowed to attend is an act of disdain for the Canadians who, through their action and determination, helped make this country.

Stephen Harper clearly couldn't care less about the veterans, the memorial or emotions of Canadians as a whole. To him, this is all politics. And he is so afraid of his political opposition, so hungry to serve his own needs that he is unable to sacrifice a slice of his own ego to properly honour those who sacrificed a thousand times more.

Harper is incapable of empathy. He does not honour those who sacrificed and those who died. He worships himself and he allows no room for others, particularly those who stand above him and those who, through their actions have always stood above him. The dead at Vimy Ridge are a thousand times better men than Stephen Harper can ever hope to be. They would vomit if they knew what was taking place in their names. Harper's politicization of their memory is not the reason they fought.

We flush down the toilet better stuff than what makes up Stephen Harper. While he talks a good story and beats his little toy drum, Stephen Harper has made it clear what he really is. He is an unbelievable coward.

The Governor General has the power to fix this. She should call Stephen Harper in and lay it out simply. Stay home. The memory of the people who actually fought for this country is none of his concern. Any speech he makes, no matter how stirring the writers make it for him, will mean nothing.

Harper is about to foul the hallowed ground of Vimy Ridge.

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Scotian and Miranda weigh in.
Joseph brings up a round.

Update: Harper has now reversed his position. Too late. He's done his damage. The above remains germane.