Articles appearing on this page are from sources outside the CAVUNP, LGen RR Crabbe Chapter such as magazines, newspapers and other web sites. Therefore we are not responsible for errors or omissions in these articles.
by SLt Alain Blondin
Once a sailor, always a sailor!
While many people beat the summer traffic by cycling, running or walking to work, Lieutenant-Commander Rob Logan commutes by kayak on Ottawa’s scenic waterway, the Rideau Canal.
His daily 10 km cruise from Dow’s Lake to NDHQ takes 35 minutes.
“I figure that I’ve done this for about 750 days so far, so that’s 7 500 km,” says LCdr Logan, a marine engineering officer. He bought his 16-foot sea kayak eight years ago after first trying a smaller, less expensive version. “The hull design makes this one much faster and more stable,” he says.
LCdr Logan is one of the few people who use the canal to kayak to work from late spring until late autumn. When asked if anyone has ever travelled with him, he remembered one fellow who paddled with him once, but when they got to work “he looked like a horse that had been ridden hard and put away wet.” The kayaker has been alone ever since.
His vessel is the only boat locked up amid the multitude of bicycles at NDHQ. Why does he do it? “Ottawa has this great resource, so why not use it?” says LCdr Logan. “It’s a great way to combine fitness and pleasure.”
The naval officer is retiring this summer after 36 years of service. His retirement plans include a trip down the full length of the Rideau Canal to Kingston, Ont., and, once he moves back to Victoria, kayaking amid the Gulf Islands.
No doubt - our soldiers are our best emissaries
I've just returned from Kandahar, where I was documenting the arrival of 250 Canadian soldiers who are part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) to rebuild this area of Afghanistan.
They will be followed by some 1,200 Canadians now based in Kabul who'll be assigned to pacify volatile "enemy" regions to the south - the "hunt-and-kill" guys.
Compared to their work in the capital of Kabul, Kandahar is the front line and potentially far more lethal, as it is here that the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida are more numerous and more daring.
Mark it down as unabashed nationalism if you will, yet as one who was in Kabul for the presidential election last October - and before that with the Princess Pats in the Kandahar region when the Americans mistakenly bombed the Pats, killing four and wounding eight - a huge reason for the success in democracy enjoyed by Afghanistan belongs to the Canadians.
It was the same with the recent parliamentary elections in Kandahar, which, contrary to the expectations of various "experts," were remarkably peaceful and even joyful as Afghans came in droves to participate in their first taste of democracy.
Again, my pride in our Canadian soldiers is almost sublime. For example, unlike the Americans and others, our patrols in Kandahar go among the people, mix with them in the markets, talk to them and help them. Each patrol has scores of kids following them, laughing and joking.
Admittedly, the Americans are doing the heavy fighting in the hills in an effort to snuff out pockets of al-Qaida extremists and hopeful to one day nail Osama bin Laden. But in Kandahar they don't mix with the people and are ever poised for violence.
I think the Americans and others are learning from the Canadians, who have decades of peacekeeping experience. Our soldiers always get involved with the people on foreign missions.
I've covered more of our military missions in the last dozen years than any journalist and have produced TV documentaries in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia and Afghanistan. In every one, our troops have been effective humanitarians as well as conventional soldiers.
Let me cite one example here in Kandahar. At the Canadian camp in Kandahar a while back, some locals came to the front gate wheeling a horribly burned child in a wheelbarrow - a boy, maybe five years old.
They asked for help. They had no other recourse. The local hospital wouldn't take the child - it had no drugs, no medicines, no way of treating burs. There was nothing. they could do.
The American hospital wouldn't take the boy because he wasn't a casualty of war - a gas stove in his home had blown up, burning the boy from the waist down and injuring his younger sister even worse.
These people - we assumed they were relatives - were appealing to the Canadians as a last resort, knowing our soldiers always try to help.
To cut a long, unhappy story short, a patrol under Sgt.- Maj. Billy Boland and with medical assistant Warrant Officer Shawn Best, gathered what medication they could find and took the boy to his home, which was relatively close.
For the next few days, with no formal authority but with the higher command apparently agreeing not to see, a patrol went out with what medications they could scrounge in the way of salves, pain killers and dressings, to visit the boy and do what they could for him.
Of course, I went along with my camera. It wasn't easy for any of us. The house was a hovel, flies everywhere. Remove the sheet on the boy and the flies landed. We felt helpless.
These were tough infantry soldiers, many who are on their second tour. But we all felt personally involved - especially on the second day, when the little girl died. They buried her in their backyard.
I think we all knew the boy's case was hopeless. Yet we all did what we could. Everyone in camp knew about it; everyone hoped against hope.
Sgt.-Maj Boland asked the boy what he wanted most. The lad said, through an interpreter, "a red and white football." I think we all knew he would never get to see it. Yet Boland phoned his wife in Canada to buy and send one.
A couple of days later the boy died. I guess all we did was ease the pain with medications, but it was as if one of our own had died.
When the red and white football arrived, Sgt.-Maj. Boland gave it to the kid's brothers. Maybe they'll remember him through it. We didn't even know his name.
But the boys' neighbours and the people in the district know that Canadian soldiers did what they could to help.
I still get choked up thinking of the boy. But you know, there are stories like this wherever Canadian solders are in the field.
They are our best emissaries, our best diplomats, social workers, humanitarians.
Yet our media ignore their work - especially the CBC, our self-proclaimed "public broadcaster," which seems only to honour our soldiers when they are accidentally killed by Americans. The print media aren't much better.
Our soldiers are most appreciated not by their country, but by the people they serve in foreign lands.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Garth Pritchard's TVdocumentaries are about the only existing record of the work Canada's soldiers do. All have won prestigious awards - when he can find a TV channel that will air them.
Manitoba's veterans can drive their cars with pride, thanks to a new provincial license plate that identifies their status. The plates, which were unveiled to a crowd of veterans at the St. James branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, are modeled after the standard Manitoba plates, but with a few important changes: a poppy, is situated between the letters and numbers, and the word "Veteran" appears.
According to provincial transportation and government services minister Ron Lemieux, who spoke at the unveiling, Manitoba is now the eighth province to honour its veterans with special license plates; an honour that's long overdue.
Manitoba's government is very aware of the special relationship that exists between the province and the military, said Lemieux, especially our veterans. "For their efforts, we want to honour there with a kind of recognition that will travel far and wide to display, our pride in our veterans. We agree it's a fitting tribute." The plates, which were developed with the Royal Canadian Legion and the department of vehicle licensing, are available to any Manitoban who was a member of the.armed forces, allied forces, merchant navy, or any peacekeeping missions.
Current soldiers as well as some members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police may also be eligible for the "veteran" plates.
Legion volunteers look up each potential plate-owner to determine whether their claim as a veteran is legitimate. Although the plates themselves are free of charge, a five dollar administration fee is collected by the Legion.
Cliff Tessier, the Legion's president for Manitoba and Northwest Ontario, said he felt the timing of the unveiling couldn't have been better. It is very appropriate, said Tessier, that our Provincial government not only made this possible, but that they did this at this time of year, just before the most important day for all Canadians, Nov. 11, Remembrance Day.
"This is a day all Manitoba veterans will keep in their hearts forever."
Norm Van Tassel didn't wear a blue beret when he was stationed in Korea in the 1950s, but he was a peacekeeper nonetheless.
It was 1954 and a ceasefire had been declared between North and South Korea, two countries that had been engaged in a `police action' from 1950 to '53. Van Tassel and other Canadian soldiers were there as part of a United Nations force designed to ensure peace and stability between the two sides, who are divided by the 38th parallel. They were quite literally keepers of the peace, but without the recognizable accoutrements of today's Peacekeepers.
"(Peacekeepers) didn't start wearing blue and driving white jeeps until 1956 in Egypt and Cyprus and places like that," the veteran explains.
Today, the 69-year-old feels good about his involvement in Korea and feels that his efforts, and the efforts of those who lost their lives, made a difference. "I remember something that one of my Korean friends said when they were honouring the Korean veterans at one of our get-togethers. He said, 'We are here in Canada because you Canadians were their (in Korea),"' says Van Tassel, who is past-president of the LGen RR Crabbe Chapter of the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping, as well as a long-time active member of the Korean Veterans Association.
Van Tassel's work didn't end after he left Korea in 1955, or after he retired from the military in the early 1960s. Since that time he has been active in fostering recognition for the efforts of Canadian soldiers and Peacekeepers.
In 1998, while serving as president of Unit 17 of the Korea Veterans Association, Van Tassel chaired a committee that raised funds for the erection of a cairn in Brookside Cemetery to honour the 37 Manitoba servicemen who lost their lives in Korea from 1950 to 1955 and the 17 servicemen who were killed accidentally while travelling from Camp Shilo, Mb. to Korea in 1950.
Van Tassel also successfully lobbied the Manitoba government to have July 27 declared as Korea Veterans Day and Aug. 9 as Peacekeeping Day, one of the first Canadian provinces to do so.
Van Tassel's most recent project was the erection of a cairn to honour the many Canadian Peacekeepers killed in the line of duty. Armed with previous experience and contacts from the Brookside cairn project, Van Tassel says support for the endeavour came relatively easily. The cairn was officially unveiled on Aug. 8 to a crowd of approximately 300 people at its location in Memorial Park, at the corner of Memorial Boulevard and Osborne Street.
"It was terrific," Van Tassel says of the event. "General (Ray) Crabbe gave the opening address and we had representatives from all three levels of government and all the veterans associations out."
Winnipeg Free Press August 18, 2004 --- by Michael Marshall
A cairn at Memorial Park has been unveiled to honour Canadians who have died on United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world.
The memorial cairn consists of three stone pillars, ranging from eight to 12 feet tall representing the strength of the Army, Navy, Air Force and RCMP. Each pillar is engraved with a single word - past, present and future - to signify the service and sacrifice of Canadian Peacekeepers.
"Canada was a founder of the UN peacekeeping force and thousands of our soldiers have served with distinction in countries in conflict around the world," said Manitoba Transportation and Government Services Minister Ron Lemieux. "Sadly, in meeting this great international obligation, many Canadians have made the highest sacrifice in the name of peace and this cairn is a tribute to their legacy. "
The memorial is an initiative of the Lt.-Gen. R.R. Crabbe Chapter of the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping and is funded by the City of Winnipeg, Army, Navy and Air Force veterans associations, Royal Canadian Legion, War Amps of Canada, Jewish War Veterans Association, other military associations and private citizens. It is installed on land provided by the province at the corner of Memorial Boulevard and Osborne Street North.
"It is a striking tribute to the memory of Canadians who have served and sacrificed on behalf of this country and our commitment to the peacekeeping role of the United Nations," said Crabbe.
The United Nations was founded in 1945 and, in response to a Canadian proposal by future Canadian Prime Lester "Mike" Pearson, created the United Nations Emergency Force in 1957 to provide peacekeeping measures to member nations. Pearson received the one and only Nobel Peace Prize awarded to a Canadian for his proposal which ended an armed conflict in the Suez Canal region and was the template for future UN peacekeeping missions.
A total of 154 Canadian soldiers have been killed during peacekeeping missions in Korea, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Indo-China, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Belgian Congo, Cyprus, Vietnam, Somalia, Rwanda, Macedonia, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Haiti and Serbia.
Monday, August 9, has been declared Peacekeeping Day in Manitoba as part of the salute to Canada's UN veterans.
Memorial Park also commemorates the sacrifices made by Canadians during the First World War, Second World War and the Korean War.
Winnipeg Real Estate News August 13, 2004