Both Charles Adler, and now a reader have recommended The Battle of Medak Pocket on History channel tonight.
… tells the compelling story of a stand off in September 1993 between the heavily armed Croat troops and the men of the Second Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.
Their bravery and determination saved the mission, forcing the Serbs to lay down their arms, pushing the Croats out of the area, and earning the men of the Princess Patricia’s 2nd Battalion a rare UN unit citation.
The events at Medak Pocket helped crystallize an ongoing debate in the world community over the effectiveness of the original UN tradition of “peace keeping” and the need to replace it with a more effective but dangerous doctrine of “peace making.”
A topic near and dear to hearts here.
(I plan to watch if my headache will let up a little. I’ve been sick most of the day, so don’t expect anything new until morning.)
Get well, Kate.
Whenever I go into Indigo, I’m always amused by the signs reading “The World needs more Canada”. More of what exactly?
Thinking about it, maybe Canada’s contribution to the world should be about helping other nations successfully get to “Peace, Order and Good Government”.
If that is true, then Peacekeeping is out and Peacemaking (“Armed Social Work”) is in.
Every once in a while I wish I had a cable subscription. Alas, my TV sits in storage because the amount of garbage you have to pay for to get the occasional good program just isn’t worth it. But, yah, I’ve always thought the peaceniks who go on and on about how Canada should stick to peacekeeping seem to have forgotten that there has to be a peace to keep. They would have us and the rest of the world stand idly by watching genocide take place because all we do is keep peace.
The action at Medkat Pocket is a very good example of just how well the Canadain soldier can perform, a good peacekeeper and even better soldier. Canadians would not be considered good peacekeepers if they weren’t already great soldiers.
I was very fortunate to be able to attend the GG’s ceremony in Winnipeg to honour those at this battle and proud to see their achievement of Canadian arms recognized.
Thank you for pointing out this show to your audience, I only regret that it would be preaching to the choir.
Like Kurt Meyer said after WW2, there are no soldiers, other than my own men, that are better than the Canadians. Kurt Meyer was an SS officer and fought in Poland at the start till his capture in France, against all combatants faced by Germany in that war.
Get well Kate, dont forget to vote ,
should be an interesting day in the blogesphere tomorrow and into the night. esp. Sask.
If I was to stay up all night and go through all of the books I have on Canadian WW2 history I doubt I could come up with anything more inappropriate than the quote in the comment from Iain above. If any of you don’t know (or care) who Kurt Meyer was or what his men did to our soldiers in Normandy, I lifted the following from wiki real quick:
“Meyer’s record as a brave and daring officer was ruined by his conviction for war crimes committed during the heavy fighting around Caen in 1944, when he was accused of counseling troops under his command to deny quarter to allied prisoners of war, after which his soldiers shot surrendered Canadians at Meyer’s headquarters in Abbey Ardennes.”
Rommel and Kesslering had some nice things to say about our men, try looking up their quotes.
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Sorry to see your not feeling well, Kate. Hope you feel better come the morning. – Reg
do you have a links for that Ian and Reg?
http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,64.0/all.html
I finally got hold of some ibuprofin this evening, so started feeling better. But I’m hitting the sack early anyway.
My father was stationed in Germany in the 50’s and got to know several former German soldiers(ss),like to like,I spose.and the story as told to him bout Canucks,was”british they come around one side of the bush,American,they come around the other side,Canadian rite up thru the Gawdamn middle.”
Advil Gel Caps, warm socks (or a puppy). Soon Lorne will be dreaming “Home. I’ll go home. After all… tomorrow is another day.”
What battle?
The Liberals and their allies in the media kept Canadians in the dark about our troops fighting in the former Yugoslavia – a disgrace.
Especially disgraceful are the typical cowardly Canadian ‘journalists’. They’re even more disgusting than their Liberal owners.
I thought the same thing Reg. Meyer was the lone War Criminal Canada prosecuted after the war. Sentenced to hang, commuted, transfered to German prison, on the street by the 60’s.
Colgate:
I don’t have a link to give, but there is a book called “A meeting of Generals”. It is a bio of Meyer and General Foster, who was the Canadian he fought against in Normandy. It tells the whole story. An outstanding book
There needs to be more publicity about the efforts of our military, current and historical, and this info should inundate the sites of peaceniks and those that support refugee status for deserters. These groups conviently forget how many Canadians have given their lives to protect their right to march, protest, etc.
I’m with Philanthropist. Of all the things our left leaning “journalist” class has done to this country, the almost complete blackout on news about Canadian soldiers is probably the worst.
Where am I hearing about the Battle of Medac Pocket? An American produced TV show on an American cable network.
Where did we hear about the PPCLI in Afghanistan? Soldier of Fortune, that’s where. An American gun magazine which, thanks to Chapters/Indigo, you can’t buy here in Canaduh.
What’s going on in Afghanistan right now? Dunno! I have to sort through like ten blogs to find out anything other than the body count. Mostly American blogs too.
That level of MSM war coverage amounts to deliberate concealment, in my book.
I fail to see how the fact that Meyer was a nasty piece of work, or had a serious lapse in judgement, makes his comment about Canadian troups any less of a high professional compliment.
Meyer was a (very) experienced professional soldier, and his complimentary comment about comparatively “green” Canadian troups is in stark contrast to German comments about green American troups at, say, Kasserine Pass where only the massive airpower and artillery supremacy of the US allowed them to stop the under gunned, fueled and out numbered Germans from administering an unholy pasting to the American Army. IIRC, the US Army took far more casualties in under a month at KP then the whole Iraq & Afghanistan mess so far.)
People are not one dimensional. The fact that that some sports hero may also mistreat his wife, doesn’t make his appreciation of your sports skills less of a compliment. Just don’t treat your wife they way he does.
*
“fred says… The fact that that some sports hero may also
mistreat his wife, doesn’t make his appreciation of your
sports skills less of a compliment.”
say fred… do you still hold some unnamed sports hero up
as an example, if say, he murders a man and then brutally
decapitates his wife?
just curious.
*
Neo, Reg, perhaps we can agree that although Kurt Meyer was a war criminal, he knew what he was talking about regarding Canadian Soldiers?
Our dads and uncles kicked his Nazi ass all over Europe, he was convicted, he paid his price, that’s the end of it. That he admired the quality of the ass kicking he got and found the Canadian soldier superior to his own elite SS Jew killers is just icing on the cake. Wisdom would lead one to think that maybe the refusal to commit war crimes is what makes the Canadians so dangerous in war.
To the point, the war crimes Meyer perpetrated are being surpassed every day in Afghanistan, and the Taliban are running away from Canadian soldiers faster than the SS ever did. When it hits the fan Canadians step up. That’s who we are. If we need a great big army to go kick some asses, we will have one PDQ.
Now, wouldn’t it be nice if the CBC could report on THAT story?
Thank you Fred for your comments.
cheers
don dow
The Serbs were painted as the absolute villains and the buzz word “ethnic cleansing” was hissed by many female news commentators. No doubt the Serbs were guilty of atrocities. The master stroke of propaganda was to paint their enemies as poor helpless civilians. It worked. Yet I understand the Canadian troops saved the Serbs from a massacre.
We must not hurt the feelings of Madame Louise Arbour in this- nor the American lady now looking for ultimate power. (sarc).
Peter, you are speaking of subjects that thanks to the effective news blackout on that war, which we are still in, most people don’t know about. I certainly don’t.
Suffice to say there appears to have been a three-way ethnic cleansing cluster f-ck and our guys were right there in the middle of it.
Tell you something else we don’t know: who the Americans were bombing from 10k feet and missing.
Love that CBC coverage.
Phantom et al..whoa there for a second..
The reason that Meyers sentence was commuted from a death sentence to a decade or so in Jail, was through the efforts of Canadian officers who stood up for him at his trial.To be fair, the trial was a bit of a witch hunt to appease those in the Canadian govt who wanted someone to pay for the murder of those Canadian soldiers in the Abbey..
What was clearly evident, (and i have researched this bit of history well..) was that while what the young SS men did was a crime, it was not ordered directly, or even implied by Meyer that killing should take place if Canadians were captured..
“Our dads and uncles kicked his Nazi ass all over Europe, he was convicted, he paid his price, that’s the end of it. That he admired the quality of the ass kicking he got and found the Canadian soldier superior to his own elite SS Jew killers is just icing on the cake. Wisdom would lead one to think that maybe the refusal to commit war crimes is what makes the Canadians so dangerous in war.”
I think it should be mentioned that while not convicted, Canadians did a lot of things to German soldiers that would have been considered crimes if they had ever been tried for them.
Specifically, involving the SS, How about taking a one armed SS officer, strapping him to a tank and attacking German positions? He died..
Or perhaps slitting the throats of German prisoners on D-day? Or using German soldiers as human shields in the retreat from Dieppe? All well documented…we certainly were no angels and it does our soldiers no service if we portray them as complete saints when they were not.History,especially the recording of it, demands it.War is brutal, and life is short and we gave as well we took..
As a sidebar, there were very few SS units that ‘ran away’ in fact, it was this quality of steadfastness that led them to be used in situations (over and over again..) where a collapse was to averted.
In fact, it was the 12th SS panzer divsion ‘Hitler Jugend’ and the 17th SS panzer division ‘Gotz von Belichingen’ that held the Falaise gap corridor open as long as they could to allow the retreat of German forces out of Normandie.
This action led to the virtual destruction of the division, and forced them from the order of battle to re-arm and re-equip, and they finished the war as a under strength division in Hungary virtually being wiped out during the battle of Budapest.
No one can debate the merits of the SS due to their war crime participation without caveats, but to portray them as one dimensional ‘jew killers’ is to simplify their role in the combat arms of the German forces..
God bless Canada’s troops! The only enemy that stands in their way are the Liberals and the NDP in Ottawa! Leftist traitors!
Phantom.
Thanks for your statement. I did however commit a bit of an error. Two different theatres of war. Medak 1993 and Kosovo 1999. My error was through reading a MacLeans magazine in a dentists office. Now either Macleans or a letter to that magazine claimed that the rightful praise and awards to the Canadians were put on the back burners.
The reason given was that the image presented by CBC and indeed BBC of the Serbs, would be somewhat changed.
After all there were supposed to be 100,000 unmarked graves. Independent sources say no more than 2,700 have been uncovered. Some of these tragic victims may have been Serbs.
Yes, Canadians caught in the middle. One can simply say without superlatives.
Well done.
Phantom.
Thanks for your statement. I did however commit a bit of an error. Two different theatres of war. Medak 1993 and Kosovo 1999. My error was through reading a MacLeans magazine in a dentists office. Now either Macleans or a letter to that magazine claimed that the rightful praise and awards to the Canadians were put on the back burners.
The reason given was that the image presented by CBC and indeed BBC of the Serbs, would be somewhat changed.
After all there were supposed to be 100,000 unmarked graves. Independent sources say no more than 2,700 have been uncovered. Some of these tragic victims may have been Serbs.
Yes, Canadians caught in the middle. One can simply say without superlatives.
Well done.
Kursk, history is written by the victors. That would be us. Because we won the histories written are honest enough to contain the incidents you mention. Had the other guys won, that would not be the case.
Soldiers are not choirboys. They are normal guys like you and me, stuck into Hell and told to get busy killing the enemy. Guys do stuff in war they would never do otherwise, or even think of doing. That’s what war is and what makes it Hell.
You can’t stack up the behavior of the Germans against the Canadians or any of the Allies. The comparison doesn’t hold up. For every case you can cite of Allied atrocities there’s books full on the Germans.
The reason is that Allied atrocities were aberrations, the work of individuals gone off the rails. German atrocities were policy. Their government allowed these kinds of things, encouraged them and even ordered them.
Our governments did not do that. I maintain that as one reason for our victory over the Nazis, we refused to sink to their level. That made us stronger, and keeps us stronger today.
Point is, we wouldn’t know jack about what our army is doing over there if not for some hard asses blogging for free from on site. The Army is fine, its the CBC that’s off side.
I agree with that last point Phantom, they surely do a diservice to our men and women by their highly partisan and biased reporting..
A lot of you know we have quite a few veterans here who served in the hotspots, i would like to hear from some of the lads lurking here who were there at Medak..there are at least three ..
I think between the lot of us, we can cover Cyprus Golan Lebanon Syria Timor Rwanda Eritrea Somalia Iraq Afghanistan..any more?
I will be selling my travel brochures to some of these places on E-bay one day!
Like they used to say, it gives green tourism a whole new meaning!
Neo writes:
“say fred… do you still hold some unnamed sports hero up as an example, if say, he murders a man and then brutally decapitates his wife?”
Er. No.
But I’m hardly holding anyone one up as “an example” here except in one dimension of what they know.
For example that Football(?) Player Vicks (sp?) who was involved in that gross dog fighting thing. (Hey, I don’t follow football much, I’m presume he was a better that average football player.)
If he were to say as a professional football player: “Fred, your’re very good football player.” That’s praise from someone who ought to know.
(Would I prefer Dan Marino told me that? Duh. Yeah.)
If Vicks starts praising my canine management skills though, I’d be upset.
Kursk, you’re a very diplomatic guy. ~:D
Full disclosure requires I state that the only time I ever got shot at was sitting on a horse in a city park in Phoenix Arizona. They missed the horse.
Possibly my comments on war should be viewed in that light.
Meyer was tried as a war criminal because soldiers under his command murdered Canadians – POWs with their hands tied behind their backs. While in prison he was let out from time to time to act as Directing Staff for Canadian Army wargames.