A very interesting read ...
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> A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It
>is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...
>Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave
>and modest nation - Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph LONDON -
>
> Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan ,
>probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that
>Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will
>bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its
>sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.
>
> It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless
>aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the
>crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.
>
> Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the
>hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks
>out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers
>serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes,
>there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped
>glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.
>
> That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American
>continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of
>Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was
>torn in two different directions:
>
> It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the
>new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the
>gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause
>of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy.
>
> Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of seven million people
>served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000
>died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian
>troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of
>battle.
>
> Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect,
>it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory
>as somehow or other the work of the "British."
>
> The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began
>the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of
>the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships
>participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian
>soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the
>third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world.
>
> The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it
>had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged
>in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a
>campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a
>touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned,
>as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.
>
> So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in
>Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian.
>Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox,
>William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art
>Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American,
>and Christopher Plummer, British.
>
> It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases
>to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably
>Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite
>unable to find any takers.
>
> Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the
>achievements of it's sons and daughters as the rest of the world is
>completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and
>are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has
>provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the
>past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39
>missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from
>Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.
>
> Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular
>on-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which
>out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their
>regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act
>of self-abasement for which, naturally, the
>Canadians received no international credit.
>
> So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and
>selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan?
>Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things
>for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains
>something of a figure of fun.
>
> It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet
>such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian
>families knew that cost all too tragically well.
>
> Please pass this on to any of your friends or relatives who served
>in the Canadian Forces or anyone who is proud to be Canadian; it is a
>wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country and the world
>in our quiet Canadian way.
>