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As the square kilometre around the Canadian Vimy Memorial is actually Canadian soil - "the free gift in perpetuity of the French nation to the people of Canada" - that means that the Third Reich actually occupied one square kilometre of Canada during World War II.
Nazi fuckers.
I wonder what it was like for the Canadians fighting in France in 1944, what the sons and younger brothers of the men who fought at Ypres, the Somme, Vimy, Passchendale and throughout Canada's Hundred Days, felt to fight to retake the same soil their countrymen fought and died for a bare generation before? Someone must have written about it, I suppose.
Meanwhile, it's a sign of how much the world has changed in 60 years, Canadian soldiers are looking at leasing German tanks for service in Khandahar (hey, we're a northern nation, our tanks aren't air conditioned for use in deserts, okay? They were bought to fight the Soviets along the West German front, eh).
At the same time, I watched CBC's World War I documentary, The Great War, a look at Canadians in the First World War through the eyes of their descendants. The Great War is a combination of military history, family reminiscences, recreations with a touch of reality TV-style living history mixed in. As I watched, I thought about the traditions linking the Canadians of 1917 and those of 2007. Then, when the whistle blew, the piper would climb to the top of the trench and play the regiment forward into battle. Today, the strains of the pipes are still heard on Canadian bases, in the laments that mark the journey of our dead home again.
Nazi fuckers.
I wonder what it was like for the Canadians fighting in France in 1944, what the sons and younger brothers of the men who fought at Ypres, the Somme, Vimy, Passchendale and throughout Canada's Hundred Days, felt to fight to retake the same soil their countrymen fought and died for a bare generation before? Someone must have written about it, I suppose.
Meanwhile, it's a sign of how much the world has changed in 60 years, Canadian soldiers are looking at leasing German tanks for service in Khandahar (hey, we're a northern nation, our tanks aren't air conditioned for use in deserts, okay? They were bought to fight the Soviets along the West German front, eh).
At the same time, I watched CBC's World War I documentary, The Great War, a look at Canadians in the First World War through the eyes of their descendants. The Great War is a combination of military history, family reminiscences, recreations with a touch of reality TV-style living history mixed in. As I watched, I thought about the traditions linking the Canadians of 1917 and those of 2007. Then, when the whistle blew, the piper would climb to the top of the trench and play the regiment forward into battle. Today, the strains of the pipes are still heard on Canadian bases, in the laments that mark the journey of our dead home again.