~ ITEM: Where the Hell Are the Guns?: A Soldier’s View of the Anxious Years, 1939-44
~ ITEM: The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier’s Eye View, France 1944
~ ITEM: The Guns of Victory: A Soldier’s Eve View, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, 1944-45
~ AUTHOR George Blackburn was one of Canada’s finest soldier-journalists. His trilogy about serving in WW2 Canadian artillery reads like a
movie, and grips you in the gut at every point.
In discussing the horrible Canadian trudge to liberate the Netherlands, Blackburn mentions two items which I still think apply to Canadians today.
First, the report from a captured German soldier, who said of the Canadians that they just kept coming, a relentless marching wall of mud & green, no matter what was thrown at them. Get er done. Embrace the suck.
Alex Colville’s “Canadian Infantry Near Nijmegen, Holland.” , Via
The other notable was an observation from the Canadian side. When facing British or American troops, the feared and fanatical SS always fought until virtually the last man. However, following the mass-murder of captured Canadian troops by the SS, those German units knew that the Canadians would show no mercy.
Thus, when the toughest, best-equipped, most fanatical uber-soldiers of World War Two knew the Canadians were facing them? They ran away, or surrendered en masse.
Or, yesterday, when despite not knowing if there were 2 or 3 or 4 other shooters, and that they themselves might die, Canadian civilians, cops, and military leapt in to do CPR on our fallen soldier, reservist Cpl. Frank Cirillo, and to comfort him as he died.
Or, our Parliament’s Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers, who led the charge inside the Capitol buildings, and shot the Islamic terrorist. Given a very little opportunity, many politicians and staffers might well have died yesterday. Not on his watch, nor that of the RCMP, police, and other emergency responders, who ran towards the gunfire, not away.
Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers
That’s who we are, though we don’t talk about it.
That’s what we can do, though we may not be happy about it.
Don’t try to scare us, because most of us will stand up and defy you.
That’s why– even with his many many flaws– today Prime Minister Harper is speaking for the authentic heart of us, against the panderers, fascism-supporting pacifists, would-be Jihadists, muddled thinkers and multicultural cowards who are part of our country.
As you were, and about your business then– it’s only an international war of Jihad against civilization. We’ve fought bastards like this before. Whether we win, or go down fighting, the bastards will not forget what happened when they tried to sucker-punch the wrong calm-looking mild-mannered Canucki beaver. ~
