BZ to Blatchford

Christie Blatchford of the Globe & Mail is this year's recipient of the Ross Munro Media Award for defence reporting, awarded by Conference of Defence Associations and the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (ht:Army.ca). From their press release (with no specific permalink, ahem):

The Ross Munro Media Award was initiated in 2002 to recognize Canadian journalists who have made a significant and extraordinary contribution to increasing public understanding of Canadian defence and security issues. Recipients of the award have produced outstanding work regarding the efforts of the Canadian Forces in preserving Canadian democratic values (for more details see www.cda-cdai.ca). The award consists of a replica of the Ross Munro statue and a cheque for $2,500. Previous recipients of the Award are Stephen Thorne, Garth Pritchard, Sharon Hobson, and Bruce Campion-Smith.

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The Ross Munro Media Award Selection Committee singled Ms. Blatchford out from the other candidates based on her compelling work on the Canadian Forces, particularly in Afghanistan: “Christie Blatchford brings to the theatre of hostilities her keen eye and curiosity. She writes superb prose that conveys the experience of the Canadians’ war in Afghanistan. She obviously understands the soldiers and she has grasped the comradeship that binds them together. She not only informs Canadians of today’s military realities, but champions values such as honour and sacrifice. She is exceptionally evocative, superbly descriptive, and develops a compelling storyline.”

Ms. Blatchford's work merits recognition, not due to her technical expertise on military matters - although she stands head and shoulders above most of her peers in that regard - but due to her uncanny ability to distill the human stories of the soldiers themselves into compelling pieces of journalism.

She is a storyteller, in the finest tradition, and in a country that needs to hear more soldiers' stories, her work is most appreciated.

Update: Am I the only one who finds it odd that the only major media outlet to carry this news so far is the Sun chain and not her own employer, the Globe and Mail?

Upperdate: Well, at least Blatchford's bosses aren't completely out of it: there's a small blurb just inside the front page of the G&M's dead tree edition, but I still can't find anything online.

2009 Vimy Award from the Conference of Defence Associations Institute (II)

Further to this post, from Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail:

Great leaders don't always come from the top
Warrant Officer's Vimy Award shows the level of courage and commitment that can come from the ranks, not just the top brass

...
Full disclosure: WO MacDonald, now 36, is a friend. We first met in Kandahar in 2006 and he, along with his captain, Jon Hamilton, and their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope [now full colonel, see his article listed here, more here and here] , were the three leading figures in my [award-winning] book, Fifteen Days, which told the story of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and their six-month tour in southern Afghanistan.

WO MacDonald is also the recipient of the Star of Military Valour, for what the award's citation described this way: “On August 3, 2006, amidst chaos and under sustained and intense enemy fire in Afghanistan, Warrant Officer MacDonald, then sergeant, selflessly and repeatedly exposed himself to great peril in order to assist his wounded comrades.”

That is necessarily a sterile version of what actually happened that terrible day, when in the Panjwaii district, trying to take what was known as the White School, 14 soldiers found themselves seriously outnumbered, pinned down and under attack by a large group of Taliban.

At the nadir of the battle, with four Canadians already injured and one dead – Corporal Chris Reid, mortally wounded in a bomb blast – the soldiers were trapped in the school's outbuildings when a lone rocket-propelled grenade tore into one of them, killing Corporal Bryce Keller, Private Kevin Dallaire and Sergeant Vaughan Ingram, and wounding four others, including Capt. Hamilton.

He got on the radio and his message was dire: “If you don't get LAVs [light armoured vehicles] in here now, we're all gonna die!”

With machine-gun fire and RPGs raining down on him, WO MacDonald made a run for it. “As I came around the corner,” he said later, “I was assaulted by what I saw. Three soldiers appeared dead, and several more were writhing in agony from their multiple injuries. Those that were not hit by enemy fire were either hysterical or unable to do anything but stare at me in disbelief and shock.” Only Capt. Hamilton, his right foot pouring blood, was in control.

WO MacDonald apologized, of course, for not getting there sooner; Capt. Hamilton looked him in the eyes and said, “Don't worry about it, Will. I knew you'd come for me.”

And it was for that conduct – courage while under withering fire, not to mention the utter steadfastness that allowed Capt. Hamilton to know Willy would not let him down – that WO MacDonald was awarded his Star of Military Valour and in part why he received the latest honour, the Vimy Award.

The Vimy, inaugurated in 1991, is awarded every year to “one Canadian who has made a significant and outstanding contribution to the defence and security of our nation and the preservation of our democratic values.” Past distinguished winners include a number of generals, including former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier, Major-General Lewis MacKenzie and former air commodore Len Birchall.

But never before has an NCO, a non-commissioned officer, won the Vimy, and that WO MacDonald did is further recognition that the greatest leaders aren't necessarily officers (though many are), and might just as often come from the ranks.

Just as WO MacDonald aced just about every course he took as a soldier before Afghanistan, so has he continued to distinguish himself since getting back to Canada, speaking about his experiences at high schools and military gatherings. His personnel file is replete with letters of appreciation...

Update: Christie Blatchford has another relevant award herself:

BZ to Blatchford

Christie Blatchford nominated for Governor General's Literary Award

BZ to the selection committee. The non-fiction nominees are below, and here's Babbling's review of Fifteen Days.

Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army by Christie Blatchford (Doubleday Canada)

God’s Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal and the Dream of Discovery by Douglas Hunter (Doubleday Canada)

The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek by Sid Marty (McClelland & Stewart)

An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century by James Orbinski (Doubleday Canada)

The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need by Chris Turner (Random House of Canada)

BZ to Blatchford (II)

The second time we've used that title. Maj.-Gen. (ret'd) Lewis Mackenzie spells it out in the conclusion to his review of Ms Blatchford's new book, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army:

Bravo Zulu, Christie Blatchford.

Update: Rosie DiManno also likes Ms Blatchford's book.

Christie Blatchford's reaction to the Manley panel report

BZ for some choice words (some aimed at members of the punditocracy):

...this is worth fighting for, and not just in that shattered country over there, but in this one. If it's sufficiently important that Canadian soldiers are paying with their lives and limbs, it's important enough for a mere government to rise to the challenge and, if necessary, pay the infinitely less significant political price.

It may be naive to expect politicians to find the big nuts that ordinary infantrymen have, but Mr. Manley was a politician, and he seems to have found his.

It must be said that the Liberal government of which Mr. Manley was a cabinet member, and which first sent the troops to Kandahar, was unwilling to do this very thing.

As the report notes: "To put things bluntly, governments from the start of Canada's Afghan involvement have failed to communicate with Canadians with balance and candour about the reasons for Canadian involvement, or about the risks, difficulties and expected results of that involvement."..

As Mr. Manley said yesterday in reply to a reporter's question about whether the mission in Afghanistan falls within the Liberal tradition, "Absolutely ... this is a UN mission, and Lester Pearson's fingerprints are all over the UN Charter" under which auspices the UN Security Council has "repeatedly and explicitly authorized" the international military presence in Afghanistan, most recently last fall.

The report should be read by anyone who purports to hold an informed view of the mission, particularly those who haven't been to Afghanistan (this includes many of the most regular, not to mention most smarmy, commentators on the subject) and thus haven't been exposed, as the panel members have been, to the visceral punch to the gut packed both by Canadian troops and Afghans themselves.

Our soldiers have it because they are so fiercely committed even as it is they and their families who suffer most grievously. Afghans have it because they are so fierce, so bloody deprived, yet so full of promise and so worth the effort. Together, they knock your socks off, and most people who spend any time in the country end up as converts...

A recommendation I'd add, and I borrow it from retired Canadian colonel Mike Capstick [see Update at link], is that Mr. Harper ask John Manley to serve as Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan.

I'll second that suggestion.