Rosie's column forces me to ask the question; "What can I really do to support our troops?" There has to be more than just a yellow ribbon! Over the next week I will be researching what can be done......appreciate hearing of any ideas.City Columnist
Every Canadian fatality in Afghanistan has an addendum, a pro forma epitaph:
"We mourn the loss ...''
"The deaths of these brave men will not be in vain ...''
"They died doing what they believed in ...''
All of which is true. And if the statements issued by the International Security Assistance Force press office often read shallow and interchangeable, it's because dying is a fact of living in an active military, with soldiers in combat.
What's equally predictable is how casualties – of troops and civilians – have been, will continue to be, manipulated in the battle for hearts and minds and political agendas at home.
The modern anti-war movement – coalescing around Afghanistan and Iraq – was careful, in its earlier days, to refrain from criticizing soldiers. Indeed, they portrayed themselves as activists on behalf of soldiers, concerned for lives put at risk by war-mongering government. The administrations were the enemy, in Washington and London and Ottawa.
But that pretence, never accepted by most military personnel, has been abandoned and soldiers are no longer left outside the loop of protest.
We've returned to something approaching the baby-killer denunciation of Vietnam.
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