But the Medak Pocket Massacre, September 9-17, 1993, remains an important event in Canadian Military History, mostly in learning from the mistakes that were made. Everything from Canadian and UN Rules of Engagement to the way we deal with returning veterans and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can trace to the Medak Pocket Massacre.
I know I have quoted this passage before, but I think it bears repeating:
"Canadian peacekeepers in Medak Pocket, Croatia, found no peace to keep in September 1993. They engaged the forces of ethnic cleansing in a deadly firefight and drove them from the area under United Nations protection. The soldiers should have returned home as heroes. Instead, they arrived under a cloud of suspicion and silence.
In Medak Pocket, members of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry did exactly the job they were trained - and ordered - to do. When attacked by the Croat army they returned fire and fought back valiantly to protect Serbian civilians and to save the UN mandate in Croatia. Then they confronted the horrors of the offensive's aftermath - the annihilation by the Croat army of Serbian villages. The Canadians searched for survivors. There were none.
The soldiers came home haunted by these atrocities, but in the wake of the Somalia affair, Canada had no time for soldiers' stories of the horrific compromises of battle - the peacekeepers were silenced. In time, the dark secrets of Medak's horrors drove many of these soldiers to despair, to homelessness and even suicide."
From Carol Off's gripping account of one of the most scarring tragedies in the Croatian conflict, in The Ghosts Of Medak Pocket.
More information can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Medak_Pocket
It is a total shame how governments treat returning warriors that THEY sent in harms way. All for the need of political strength. FUCKERS!
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