A true winner at the Canada Army Run in Ottawa/ Peacekeepers?

Further to this post, one thing that happened today:

Amputee sets half-marathon world record in Ottawa

A Canadian soldier, who lost his leg one year ago, takes part in the annual Army Run on Sunday, September 20, 2009.

A new half-marathon world record for one-legged runners has been set in Ottawa. It happened at the Canada Army Run, an annual event that raises money for soldiers and their families.

Single-leg amputee Rick Ball set the record on Sunday, finishing the 21-kilometer course with a time of 1:20:45. Ball, who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident more than two decades ago, beat the previous record by approximately one minute.

About 11,000 military personnel and civilians participated in the two-year-old event, four thousand more than last year. Some walked or ran. Others raced in wheelchairs.

Organizers say it has become the fastest growing long-distance run in the country [emphasis added--so where's the massive media coverage (Google news search "Army Run Ottawa", maybe tomorrow, nothing at CBC Ottawa right now)?].

Lieut. Charles Nadeau of Quebec won the men's half-marathon, finishing with a time of 1:11:46. Danielle Riendeau of Ottawa won the women's event in 1:20:23.

Another notable competitor was Master Cpl. Jody Mitic, who ran on two prosthetic blades. Mitic lost his lower legs two-and-a-half years ago, when he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan. The race was his first half-marathon.

Mark Fuchko, also a double amputee, walked the race last year but was planning to run it this time.

"Seeing where I was last year, and now this year -- it's just like night and day. It's a drastic improvement," he told CTV Ottawa before the race. Fuchko also lost his legs in Afghanistan, when the vehicle he was riding in drove over an IED...

Funds raised from the run will go to Canadian military families, including a charity called Soldier On that helps current and former soldiers to stay active...

Video here (the reporter makes sure to bring up Sen. Colin Kenny's defeatism about Afstan--more on similar defeatism here).

Meanwhile from CP:

Half of Canadians surveyed want their soldiers to return to a "peacekeeping only" role in the world, according to a public opinion poll conducted for National Defence...

The public supports the deployment of troops when it is "an observation and monitoring role over a more aggressive one for the military," said the survey, conducted in early March [emphasis added] and released on a federal government website [can anyone finde it?]...

...when focus groups were asked to identify their first impressions of the Canadian military, they chose peace signs, hands reaching out to help others, blue berets and helmets, as well as soldiers helping others, rather than bearing arms and images of death and combat from Afghanistan.

"When I thought of Canadian forces, I drew an army guy helping someone else — helping as opposed to destroying, peace rather than bearing arms — unlike the States," one participant told researchers...

Enough said--except also in the story:

The nostalgia for the Pearsonian peacekeeping days...

How many Canadians know that the great example of "Pearsonian peacekeeping" ended up a complete failure? Why is that not taught at school?

The peacekeeping force for which Pearson won the Nobel Prize, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), was kicked out of Egypt in 1967 by Egyptian President Nasser (Egyptian reporting here): one of the key events precipitating the pre-emptive Israeli attack that began the Six Day War of 1967.