'sA-dE . com

Dispatches from the edge

I got another call from Capt. Mike today to let me know he was doing alright. Apparently there were marajuana fields nearby, but he was more excited at the prospect of maybe getting some fresh corn or watermelons at some point. He asked what the coverage back here was like. I told him I hadn't been watching the news much, but that I had been reading the Globe and Mail and going to the Global News Web site. They interview a couple of people whose names I recognise, so it's fairly comforting to read about them. Apparently a CBC news crew caught Mike with his pants down, quite literally, while he was washing up. The image likely won't make it onto the National with Peter Mansbridge, but they said they'd give him a copy. If it's not too X-rated, or nothing that a strategically placed black box won't fix, then Saedigh.com readers can look forward to seeing it too.

I also told him about the memorial service in Petawawa yesterday. It was pretty overwhelming. Over 1500 people spilling out of the 1RCR drill hall to share their grief with the families of the five fallen men. For the most part, the coverage of the event was quite well done and respectful. However, shortly after the service the CBC posted a story about it that took some comments out of context. One soldier, eulogizing his late friend, described going through the initial steps in the 7 stages of grieving. When he got to anger, he stated that his initial reaction to the news, after shock, had been that he wished he knew who the bastards were that had done this. Sadly, it was that quote, without any context, that CBC zeroed in on and printed in their initial coverage. I have since tried to find the story on their Web site again, and it seems to have been redacted.

It angers me when I see things like that. In another story in The Globe and Mail on-line, in which readers were invited to provide commentary in an open forum attached to the article, a platoon commander who I know personally was quoted as telling his company commander that after a short quiet period, his men were "chomping at the bit" to get back into action. The forum users this time, not the actual press, were the ones to twist his words into something they really didn't mean, arguing that retaliation was the basest form of war and that cowboys like him were going to get more people killed, etc. It is disheartening to see such a public display of callous ignorance. It is pretty obvious, from the opinions that I have read at least, that such man-on-the-street-type Canadians clearly have no idea about what's going on in Afghanistan or how our military is trained and prepared. People keep saying that they've been mislead, and that the mission is no longer one of peacekeeping and reconstruction. They don't realise that it never has been a peacekeeping mission. They also don't seem to understand that it's pretty damned impossible to reconstruct a war zone before the conflict has ended, and before any sort of security has been established. But I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, and their freedom to express it, even if they personally would never consider standing up to really defend those rights the way the people they are so quick to criticize have.