World War II reality and resonance, Part Two
Further to this post dealing with Max Hastings' Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, an earlier and excellent detailed review of the book by David Frum.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:28 a.m.
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Here's a vignette from World War Two that might be educational for those who think that Canada has no combat tradition and that fighting for Freedom is somehow "un-Canadian".
Years ago when I lived in California, I knew a lady who had emigrated to America from Holland. She was a young girl during World War Two, living with her widowed mother in a small Dutch town.
During the War, her mother was a member of the Dutch Resistance. The Gestapo caught her and some other local Resistance members smuggling guns in town. The German troops forced all the townspeople to come to the town square and my Dutch friend was put in the front row of the townspeople while a German soldier held her head, forcing her to watch as her mother and the men were put in front of a wall and shot.
Later during the war, it was Canadian Soldiers who liberated the town from the Nazis. My friend described the intense relief and joy she and all the towns people felt when those Canadian Soldiers liberated their town.
After the brief but intense firefight between the Canadian troops and the Nazi garrison, the whole people spontaneously came out, cheering, giving the Canadian Soldiers flowers, bottles of wine, food and profusely thanking them for freeing them.
Unfortunately, this liberation wasn't without cost, she said. A few of the Canadian Soldiers were killed or wounded, as were a few Dutch civilians.
These fallen Canadian Soldiers are buried in a nearby military cemetary. She said that during the time she lived in Holland, on every year on the anniversary of their Liberation, the townspeople had a memorial ceremony at the cemetery, taking groups of schoolchildren to the cemetery, speakers talk about the occupation and their liberation by the Canadian Soldiers. The children were told that their freedom wasn't free, that it was paid for by the lives of those brave fallen Canadian Soldiers.
There were tears running down her face as she told me this deeply moving story.
Today, Canadian, American, British and other Allied Soldiers are fighting for the Liberation of the Afghan people. It is well to remember our shared history and bear in mind that our brave Servicemen and Women are Liberators, not occupiers. Like their fathers and grandfathers, our Soldiers fight, and sometimes die, to give Freedom to the Afghan people, not to take it away.
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