Maj. Gen. (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie on flags and coffins
Audio of interview on CFRA, Ottawa, Tuesday morning: while he supports the flag decision, he doubts the wisdom of banning the media's covering the coffins' return at Trenton.
And from his Globe and Mail column today (full text not online):
...
...it was the right decision...
The federal government's return to the flag protocol that saw this nation through two world wars, Korea, and more than 120 fatalities on numerous peacekeeping missions will once again result in the Canadian flag being lowered at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa and at each base across the country where a deceased soldier was stationed...
The Canadian military has begun a long overdue rebuilding process. There is no guarantee that process will succeed. Sympathy for the fallen is gratefully appreciated, but our young men and women abroad and at home need the public behind them in more ways than one.
I leave it to a Canadian soldier to have the final word. Having served in Afghanistan, he called in to a Toronto talk show on Sunday just after I had finished my interview. I wish I had recorded his name. To paraphrase, he said, "We wear the Canadian flag on the sleeve of our uniform, we salute it every day in theatre and if we are killed, it drapes our coffin. That is how the flag respects us. If the public wants to show its respect for us, give us the funding, the equipment, the training and the support to do the job you order us to do."
I wish I had said it that well.
The Globe's editorial also gets it right (full text not online).
...
To make a national show of mourning over each soldier who dies -- lowering the flag on Parliament's Peace Tower and other public buildings; sending the Prime Minister to meet the bodies when they are brought home to Canada -- almost suggests that the country has been shaken to its roots. That is not the message that Ottawa wants to send at a time when our soldiers are facing a ruthless foe in foreign fields. Far better to mourn in quiet dignity, marking the loss and then moving on. This is what soldiers do when they lose one of their comrades. This is what we at home should learn to do, too.
Ottawa should not sanitize what is going on in Afghanistan or try to play down the fact that our soldiers are dying, but neither should it let grief undermine resolve. It is a thin line to walk. Deaths like this weekend's are a tragedy but they are not a crisis. We have seen their kind before in our history and we will see them again. They are the cost of defending freedom.
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
And from his Globe and Mail column today (full text not online):
...
...it was the right decision...
The federal government's return to the flag protocol that saw this nation through two world wars, Korea, and more than 120 fatalities on numerous peacekeeping missions will once again result in the Canadian flag being lowered at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa and at each base across the country where a deceased soldier was stationed...
The Canadian military has begun a long overdue rebuilding process. There is no guarantee that process will succeed. Sympathy for the fallen is gratefully appreciated, but our young men and women abroad and at home need the public behind them in more ways than one.
I leave it to a Canadian soldier to have the final word. Having served in Afghanistan, he called in to a Toronto talk show on Sunday just after I had finished my interview. I wish I had recorded his name. To paraphrase, he said, "We wear the Canadian flag on the sleeve of our uniform, we salute it every day in theatre and if we are killed, it drapes our coffin. That is how the flag respects us. If the public wants to show its respect for us, give us the funding, the equipment, the training and the support to do the job you order us to do."
I wish I had said it that well.
The Globe's editorial also gets it right (full text not online).
...
To make a national show of mourning over each soldier who dies -- lowering the flag on Parliament's Peace Tower and other public buildings; sending the Prime Minister to meet the bodies when they are brought home to Canada -- almost suggests that the country has been shaken to its roots. That is not the message that Ottawa wants to send at a time when our soldiers are facing a ruthless foe in foreign fields. Far better to mourn in quiet dignity, marking the loss and then moving on. This is what soldiers do when they lose one of their comrades. This is what we at home should learn to do, too.
Ottawa should not sanitize what is going on in Afghanistan or try to play down the fact that our soldiers are dying, but neither should it let grief undermine resolve. It is a thin line to walk. Deaths like this weekend's are a tragedy but they are not a crisis. We have seen their kind before in our history and we will see them again. They are the cost of defending freedom.
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:57 a.m.
5 Comments:
I can probably be persuaded on the flag issue, but barring the media from Trenton is pure political hackery.
It is unprecidented in Canada - there is no other time this has happened. We got to do it just 3 weeks ago.
Trying to hide this by banning the media will absolutely backfire. The banning has made this into a bigger issue than it needed to be or ever would have been.
On one hand the Cons revert to tradition and on the other they break it.
Shame on them and good of Maj. Gen MacKenzie for calling it right.
As one of the more than 50% of the NDP the whole-heartedly supports the mission, this behaviour worries me.
I'm a little sick and tired of the rhetoric spouting a return to "tradition". There is no goddamned tradition!!
There is no reason that, on the date of repatriation, this nation cannot halfmast its national flag for 1/2 a day.
Any suggestion that this is not the way we did it in past conflicts is utter BS.
The fact is, other than less hostile contingency operations, those who fell in WWI, WWII and Korea were interred where they fell. Their bodies never came home, so where does this "return to tradition" come from?
I do suggest, however, that if this is to become the standard, that all occasions for halfmasting on the death of a politician be removed from protocol.
If were not going to show respect for someone who deserves it, there is no reason whatsoever to provide ceremony to someone who doesn't.
From Blue Blogging Soapbox:
1. An Hercules pilot has a heart attack and dies shortly after returning from an Afghanistan flight;
2. A Sgt. in Petawawa is killed in an off base traffic accident while returning home after a days work training pers prior to deployment;
3. A Naval Captain dies at home of natural causes while sleeping.
With each of the above situations, there are appropriate customs and tradtions to be followed. With the Liberal's change of tradition, we are now left with a new decision. Which one of the above situations would rate the lowering of flags at all National buildings? All, none, some?
Are their deaths any more or less important than the death of someone in the Afghanistan theatre of operations? What is the new criteria to determine whether or not you rate the honour of a National flag lowering? Who makes that decision?
Imagine yourself as the spouse or relative of someone in the examples given above. What would your reaction be if the decision is not to lower the flags?
Dave, when you say: "I'm a little sick and tired of the rhetoric spouting a return to "tradition". There is no goddamned tradition!!", are you certain about that? Were flags lowered across the country for fatal casualties in the Balkans? For any of our casualties overseas, in cases where their remains were brought home?
I think there's an argument to be made for changing the tradition, but I'm not sure that arguing there is no tradition to change is particularly accurate.
I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestion about politicians and lowered flags, however.
I would take MacKenzie more seriously if he wasn't a partisan Tory. Opps forgot about that did we, his little run for the party as a candidate. In the future please make all references to MacKenzie with not only his military honorific but, 'card carrying Tory'.
That's weak, Eugene. MacKenzie ran as a PC once and has refused all offers by the merged CPC. You might want to have more than that to go on before implying he would forego 30+ years of reputation as a professional soldier for some undisclosed partisan reward. And you conveniently forgot to note that MacKenzie broke with the Harper government's decision to ban journalists from the repatriation ceremonies at Trenton. Didn't fit with your "he's a Tory hack" narrative, I guess.
Besides, as someone who has declared class war on professional military officers, you obviously have your own axe to grind.
Everyone who posts here is a partisan of one stripe or another, but we try to keep our political jabs to our own sites instead of dragging those fights into this arena. I'd strongly suggest you do the same.
Post a Comment
<< Home