The Titantic turned and still sank. Bruce
Canadian forces Politicians and the public stand at attention By DAWN WALTON Monday, December 26, 2005 Posted at 1:40 AM EST >From Thursday's Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051230.wxnation-militar y1230/BNStory/Front/ Calgary - Warrant Officer Todd D'Andrade is kind of humdrum when he talks about helping wind down Camp Julien in Kabul as the Canadian Forces prepared to move to Kandahar, a far more dangerous region to the south. A different demeanour dominates when the conversation turns to his upcoming deployment back to Afghanistan. He will be hunting down bad guys. He will also be on the lookout for those hunting him. "We're able to do our jobs that much better when we know these are the rules that we're playing by," WO D'Andrade said from his home in Edmonton, where he is a member of the 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. "None of this wishy-washy UN stuff." This kind of blunt talk, which has trickled down from the top, has the public and politicians standing at attention. But when Rick Hillier was appointed Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff earlier this year, his tough tone shocked civilians and even some members of the Forces. The military's job is to be able to "kill people," he said. Those responsible for terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere are nothing more than "detestable murderers and scumbags," he said. Canada's military men and women could come back from deployment in body bags, he said. "He's a straight shooter," said WO D'Andrade, who at 41 has almost 23 years of military service under his belt, including tours in Cypress, Bosnia and Croatia. "He says it the way it is." The national pastime of mocking Canada's aging helicopters and pitying our troops sent to desert climates in inappropriate jungle fatigues is giving way to talk about how the military is a nation builder. Talk now revolves around how much to spend on the Canadian Forces instead of how much to cut. The federal Liberal government had announced $12.8-billion over five years to boost manpower and replace equipment. Now the Conservatives, in an election pledge, say they would spend even more to beef up Canada's military. But observers say that to rebuild, the Canadian Forces need $30-billion -- something nobody has promised. Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie says the military is in the midst of a "crisis of scale and support." Military historian Jack Granatstein takes an accounting: "Too little money; too few personnel; too much obsolete equipment and not enough of it; and, dare I say, more support from the public." This country also needs a frank debate about military capabilities and gaps, says Lieutenant-General Marc Caron, Chief of the Land Staff. "I can imagine a scenario that could overwhelm the Canadian Forces in a very short period of time," he said during a recent conference on the state of the reserves. But there is also criticism about the new Canadian Forces. Did a $4.6-billion contract for new military transport aircraft go through proper procurement channels? What is Canada's role in Afghanistan? Critics are calling it a "secret war" in which Canada has no reason to be engaged and no exit plan, and which could bankrupt the army. "I don't see anyone telling him [Hillier] to take that hill," said Scott Taylor, editor of the military magazine Esprit de Corps. Still, the Forces have gone through a dramatic transformation since that night in 1993 when the Canadian military hit its lowest point in modern history. That's when members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment beat a Somali teenager to death and photographed his torture. The military's reputation was tarnished. Budgets were slashed. Enthusiasm waned. "We're so far from Somalia now," said David Bercuson, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. "We're 10 years chronologically, but light years attitudinally." Prof. Bercuson, who is also director of programs at the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute, points to vociferous leadership, backed by Defence Minister Bill Graham and, perhaps strangely, a series of calamities that have befallen the world, for the military's rebound. "Hillier and his boys and Bill Graham -- I have to give him credit -- have been trying to turn around the Titanic. It takes a lot of time, but it's turning," Prof. Bercuson said. Through the late 1990s and over the past few years, the military has played a key role at home during crises. It helped bail Manitoba out of a massive flood, chip Quebec and Ontario out from under an ice storm, and suppress forest fires in western Canada. Abroad, it stepped in to help the United States in the war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an effort that continues as this country prepares to take command of the Kandahar-based multinational brigade after the U.S. pulls troops out for redeployment to Iraq. In the past 12 months, Canada's military, including its Disaster Assistance Response Team, has been called upon to help with the Asian tsunamis, hurricane Katrina in the U.S. South and the Pakistan earthquake. Lieutenant Roland (Rollie) Leyte, who is executive officer of the force's fleet diving unit, was among those who spent three weeks helping clear debris along the 240-kilometre shoreline of the U.S. Gulf Coast after hurricane Katrina. He remembers people honking and waving as they watched military vehicles adorned with little Canadian flags drive by. At home in Halifax, people stop him in the grocery store or at his son's hockey games, to talk about his work. "I find there's more support now than there has been in the past, even in the 17 years I've been in the Forces," Lieut. Leyte said. Captain Manuel Panchana-Moya and Private Ryan Crawford, two Edmonton-based soldiers who were injured by a roadside bomb this month while on patrol near Kandahar, said they have found support both at home and in Afghanistan. "It's either us or the Taliban," Capt. Panchana-Moya said last week during a press conference from an Edmonton hospital, where he is recovering from two badly broken feet. Both men shrugged off their injuries as part of the job and said, if able, they would resume duties in the troubled country. Canadians have sent e-mails calling them heroes and thanking them for defending freedom. "Proud to be Canadian with stories like this one," wrote Sean O'Reilly of Kitchener, Ont., "Thanks Boys!" With a report from Jan Wong [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! 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