National Peacekeeper's Day

With the media focus on the efforts of troops in Afghanistan, it is sometimes easy to forget about the many veterans of, and troops currently serving, in the rest of the world, wherever we are needed.


I personally know veterans of the Balkan Conflict (including the Wolf) and Rwanda who still suffer to this day for things they expereinced there.  While Korean War Vets refer to themselves as Veterans of the Forgotten War, I think there are many other conflicts in our history that Canada & Canadians have "fogotten".


Canada is very proud of her peacekeeping work; the folks who are against the war in Afghanistan pull that card out quickly, that we are a nation of peacekeepers, not war makers.  I wonder how many of them have taken the time to sit with a veteran of a peacekeeping mission, and really listen to their thoughts, experiences, and stories?  Find out what the reality of peacekeeping is ~ you often can't keep it until you've created it.  In fact, the United Nations definition of peacekeeping says just that: Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace


Read (or, now, watch) Shake Hands With the Devil, Romeo Dallaire's account of his time in Rwanda.  Or read Carol Off's gripping account of one of the most scarring tradegies in the Croatian conflict, in The Ghosts Of Medak Pocket.

"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."

 "Those who say that we're in a time with no heroes, they just don't know where to look"

Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981 

An (very incomplete) list of the places Canadian Forces are currently active can be found here: http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/operations/index-eng.asp

Reconciliation: The Peacekeeping Monument is a monument in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, commemorating Canada's role in international peacekeeping and the soldiers who have participated and are currently participating, both living and dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeping_Monument 


More information on National Peacekeepers' Day can be found here:
http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/sub.cfm?source=feature%2Fpeacekeeper