One more peacock on campus
I happen to have attended the last graduation ceremony at Royal Roads Military College in 1995, in order to see a friend march off the square. It was a rather surreal affair: I knew my friend and her fellow graduates, as well as every other Officer Cadet ever to run the Recruit Obstacle Course around Hatley Castle and the rest of the RRMC grounds wouldn't have a place to return to.
This was especially true since the College was going to be converted to Royal Roads University. No more Roadents marching to class in their navy blue 5's or parading in their scarlets, gaiters, and pillboxes. I remember feeling disappointed to my core. I realized the incoming civvie students would neither be aware of, nor care to learn about, let alone honour the site's military past.
Today that profound disappointment returned when I saw Royal Roads and the Canadian Forces once again mentioned in the same news article after all these years:
Francisco Juarez and Gordon Smith have one thing in common: They agree Canadians have not been engaged in a proper debate about our country's mission in Afghanistan.
Juarez, 35, a justice student at Royal Roads, will talk at UVic tonight about his decision to leave the Canadian army reserves after realizing he couldn't support Canada's mission to Afghanistan. [my italics]
I'll admit it: the idea that this poseur is strutting around with the rest of the peacocks at a university called Royal Roads makes me angry. Oh, I know it's not RRMC, and I know he was long ago shunned by the military community the newspapers like to say he represents. But it brings back to the surface the frustration I felt on that day in May of 1995.
As far as what the oft-quoted Mr. Juarez had to say on the topic of Afghanistan: who cares? There are a good 16,000 current army reservists alone who would probably disagree with the man if asked. But they won't be, because that doesn't sell newsprint.
How many times do we have to flush before the nation's journalists get the hint and join us in ignoring Francisco Juarez's latest swirl around the bowl? It seems we need to jiggle the handle at least one more time.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 11:09 p.m.
3 Comments:
That they continue to promote this guy as making a "profound" statement by leaving the military is disgusting. He was a Reserve Officer Candidate, who from most accounts couldn't cut it. From descriptions of his behaviour on his course, he should consider himself lucky he wasn't Court Martialed. The fact that the NDP and other "progessives" hold him up as some sort of example simply serves to highlight there disconnect from reality. Nothing new there.
I find it hilarious and frustrating that media types who should know better never seem to call him on the "Reservist resigned due to Afghanistan assignment" canard.
Everyone here knows that reservists don't get assigned into combat zones without first having completed all of their basic and occupational training, volunteering and being selected for a specific mission, and receiving numerous briefings (plus opportunities to bow out) as well as intensive mission- and theatre-appropriate training. And, incidentally, there is rarely a dearth of volunteers from Militia units.
Just once it would be nice to see a reporter grill this guy on his fraudulent war-zone deployment claim and include the background that his supposed reasons for departure are entirely at odds with standard CF procedure, no, his story re: Afghanistan does not check out, and therefore the readers should keep this in mind while reading the rest of his grievances.
"Taliban Jack bin Laydon"
down down down goes the level of fred's discourse
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