generalspeaking

"Dead Men Can Advance No Further"

Patriotism knows neither latitude nor longitude. It is a climatic. E.A. Storrs

Over the ten-year period that Canada has been actively involved with ISAF-NATO in Afghanistan, 152 Canadians have died, two-thirds of whom perished by IEDs, many more wounded through the same medium. Fewer die now because, finally, there is additional support in Taliban-rich Kandahar province, with a surge of thousands of American soldiers deployed there, and trained Afghan Army forces also taking up some slack.

Military glory - that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood, that serpent's egg that charms to destroy. Abraham Lincoln.

During the Korean War, 516 Canadians died, a number that appears to make these new sacrifices in Afghanistan appear slight by comparison. But Canadian young women and men from cities and towns all over the country are not dispensable; each one is mourned and represents a tragic end of a promising life, leaving families in deep, irreconcilable sorrow.

It is always easy to begin a war, but very difficult to stop one, since its beginning and end are not under the control of the same man. Anyone, even a coward, can commence a war, but it can be brought to an end only with the consent of the victors. Sallust

Canadians were far more comfortable when our troops were deployed at the behest of the United Nations, as peacekeepers. The peacekeeping model, not the active combat role, or parrying with an insurgency, seemed far more suitable to how Canadians saw their country's Forces employed. Despite the vaunted reputation Canadian soldiers earned through immense sacrifices during two disastrous world wars.

Military service produces moral imbecility, ferocity and cowardice, and the defence of nations must be undertaken by the civil enterprise of men enjoying all the rights and liberties of citizenship. Bernard Shaw

In the First World War, when Canada, as a Commonwealth Country, answered the call to duty and aligned itself alongside Great Britain against a tough German adversary, 60,661 Canadians died for King and Country. WWI, called the Great War, was thought to represent the last, great war. But there were those who complained when the armistice was signed: "Bloody fools. We have them on the run. This means we shall have to do it all over again in another 20 years." Prescient that most certainly was and Brigadier Andy McNaughton would lead the Canadian Army into the Second World War.

They brought the elephant of Asia to convey the artillery of Europe to dethrone one of the kings of Africa, and to hoist the standard of St.George upon the mountains of Rasselas. Benjamin Disraeli

In the Second World War, with Britain under duress to come to the aid of France, overrun by the German Army, Canada answered that call, too. The First World War ended 92 years ago, and the Second 65 years ago. There are now no longer any veterans alive representing active duty during WWI. Over a million Canadians served between 1939 and 1945. They helped to liberate Europe, and to free war victims from death camps. The world as we know it now was preserved because of their heroic sacrifices.

Every position must be held to the last man; there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig; 1918

Those stalwart men and women who today represent Canada's Second World War veterans are dying at a rate of 1,700 a week. There are now 143,700 veterans remaining of Second World War vintage, with an average age of 87. Their memories are still sharp; many go out to speak to school children to give them a real sense of what war is like, why it is fought and what peace brings.

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror. William Tecumseh Sherman

Veterans entering schools to bring living history to Canadian schoolchildren introduce them to some difficult-to-pronounce and-spell names like Dieppe, the Battle of the Atlantic, Juno Beach, Caen and Falaise, and the Netherlands. These elderly veterans are dedicated to their self-appointed task to teach new generations of their country's sacrifice on their behalf.

War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with...But it is not only a biological law but a moral obligation and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilization...The inevitableness, the idealism, and the blessing of war, as an indispensable and stimulating law of development, must be repeatedly emphasized. Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War

Canadian boys, farm boys, city boys, young boys fresh out of high school, and some not yet finished tenth grade, showed up at recruiting offices, and many of these boys, aged 16 and 17, lied about their age, determined to join the Forces, to go overseas and see battle. "Crazy..." reminisces one, "it broke my mother's heart".

Terrible as is war, it yet displays the spiritual grandeur of man daring to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy - death. H. Heine

Many Canadian soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, and spent months, sometimes years, in prisoners-of-war camps in places far from home - in Burma, Java, Thailand, Poland, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany, Italy, Borneo. Many suffered grave deprivations; hunger, disease, injuries, mental breakdowns and death.

To those to whom war is necessary it is just; and a resort to arms is righteous for those to whom no other hope remains. Livy

Young men and women exposed to barbaric atrocities in the theatre of war react with horror; some never recover from their experiences, many becoming suicidal, unable to take up their civilian lives with any degree of normalcy. The mental breakdown that some soldiers experience has been named variously, from different wars: nervous exhaustion, severe depression, post traumatic stress disorder.

A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is bought at the price of national honour. Theodore Roosevelt

People undergoing intensive physical and psychological challenges, becoming trained to be professional soldiers, to act on command without questioning orders, to act in unison with a unit to which they have been assigned, have been programmed by the state to become war machines. On re-entering civilian life post-conflict they must turn themselves around, lay aside what they were taught, and take up a normal life again. Not as readily achieved as it is articulated.

O God, assist our side: at least, avoid assisting the enemy, and leave the rest to me. Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau before his last battle

Mechanical obedience is the hallmark of a soldier entering the fray at the command of a superior officer. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment in 1916 embarked on a mission to take German positions near a small hamlet in northern France called Beaumont Hamel. The Newfoundlanders comprising 778 officers and the ranks initiated an advance toward the German positions, marching up to a ravine. They were completely exposed and relentlessly mown down, but kept advancing until: "...it was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further". Merciless orders representing rank stupidity. When all was done, of the 778 only 68 survived to roll call.

Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands,
And of Armed men the hum' of
Lo a nation's hosts have gathered
Round the quick alarming drum 0
Saying, "Come, Freemen, come!
Ere your heritage be wasted", said the quick
Alarming drum. Bret Harte

When, in 1917, four divisions of the Canadian Corps under the command of British Lieut.-Gen. Julian Byng, led by Canadian General Arthur Currie, stormed and captured the heavily fortified stronghold of Vimy Ridge from the well-entrenched Germans, Canada's reputation as a formidable fighting force was established.

War must be for the sake of peace, business for the sake of leisure, things necessary and useful for the sake of things noble. Aristotle

Everyone pines for peace, and abhors war. There is something in the human character that is handed down through our genetic inheritance that appears to predispose humankind to making war. And peace is the welcome interregnum between wars. If we value peace so highly, why is it that we succumb all so frequently to pursuing the war option?

War should be undertaken in such a way as to show that its only object is peace. Cicero

Obviously, if people of good will existed in sufficient numbers to stifle the initiatives taken by charismatic, entitled and brutal dictators, strife between countries could be avoided. And the sociopaths and psychopaths who take the opportunity to mount unjust wars, withholding human rights from huge swathes of any population for their personal benefit, might not occur - or so we convince ourselves.

A disadvantaged peace is better than the most jut war. Erasmus

We have not yet reached the point where war is unavoidable. Peace is preferable, but there are times when little choice is given but to counter grave injustices in the world by exerting force to attain that end. When logic and sense cannot prevail, when civil discourse fails and threats lead to violence, there must be a response, however regrettable.

Peace is better than war, because in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons. Bacon

There is a propensity, an unfortunate one, to find glory in battle. To conceive of war, when it is a righteous one, as a victory of good over evil. And though that might be so, there is nothing romantic about war; it represents the breakdown of civility, of humanity. It is the very last refuge of a desperate people to restore order and fairness and justice to the world; nothing less, nothing more.

Doughboys were paid a whole dollar a day and received free burial under the clay. And movie heroes are paid even more shooting one another in a Hollywood war. Alfred Kreymborg

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

- John McCrae

Labels: Conflict, Human Fallibility, Human Rights, Political Realities, World Crises

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 11, 2010