53 Replies to “Redcoats”

  1. I’m sure Mayerthorpe is still pretty raw with them, and losing four officers at once in the U.S. recalls that nightmare. We can’t say Thank You enough that they put their lives on the line for us.

  3. They took over a huge section inside and the red coats really stood out in a sea of dark blue. I watched it live and the announcers were choked up at times over the visual support.
    Yer sooooo right BM . . . the very thin red line that keeps the lid on all the nutters & whackjobs.

  4. I was hoping they would make a showing, and this definitely exceeds my expectations. Well done.

  6. It is nice to hear RCMP without the words scandal or cover-up. It was a most impressive display of solidarity for their brethren. This conveys a message from the people of Canada that a score of politicians and diplomats can’t.

  11. do Mounties still wear the red tunic on duty? isn’t that part of the reason the british army lost the war against the American rebels in 1778 or whenever? the red tunic stands out against the background. do they wear kevlar under the tunic?
    I know it’s rude to ask such questions in conservative circles but the advantage given with a bright red target is one of those elephant-in-the-room situations that polite company avoids.
    I reaaaaalllly hope they only wear them for formal occasions and when dignitaries show up.
    jist askin’ ….

  12. Too bad it wasn’t Caledonia they were marching into,that’s gotta be the smartest looking uniform on the planet.

  13. I have gone from being often disappointed in our Police force to (Ahem!!) , a sense of pride and thankfulness.

  14. Hey there Georgie boy,
    Let me begin by apologosing to Kate for feeding the troll.
    Unless you really do live in your Mom’s basement, you know damn well the answer to your rhetorical question. And if you don’t, then there is nothing any of us can do to help and this be my/our last response to anything you have to say.
    As I tell my teenagers, GROW UP

  15. Yes, the RCMP made a good showing at those officers memorial service, did Canada proud.
    I notice the chap who did the killing was shot to death by other police officers.
    I never saw any coverage of that aspect of the story on Canadian TV, so don’t know if it qualifies as “detainee abuse”.

  16. I think it’s legitimate to ask where the funding comes from, for such a huge number of Mounties, to take the time to attend every one of these ceremonies.
    It was an impressive display, none the less. I’m glad they stuck with the red uniforms, but they’re only for dress, George.
    I’m going to ask my nephew, who’s a Mountie, about the practice of attending ceremonies like this one. I’ll post whatever I find out.

  17. Check out the old Sgt. at 1.57 with the chest full of trinkets. They look smart in their sam brown’s and riding boots and spurs. Done us proud.

  18. “I think it’s legitimate to ask where the funding comes from”
    I’d rather see money spent on this than that stupid gun registry. Or for that matter Wendy Cukier’s ghoulish candlelight hate-men-fests.

  19. Personally, I think if a judge somewhere got his ass kicked, we’d get somewhere with Law and order in this country.
    Just my opinion, and don’t any of you activist a-holes get any ideas…….for at least a week or so.

  20. t’is to be proud of our mounties as emissaries of our country
    they said more in their silent show of solidarity than all the prattling the politicians do
    THANKYOU all police officers

  21. “”I think it’s legitimate to ask where the funding comes from”
    I’d rather see money spent on this than that stupid gun registry. Or for that matter Wendy Cukier’s ghoulish candlelight hate-men-fests.”
    ***
    This is a reasonable question.
    It is a sad commentary upon humanity when one person kills another. BUT:
    Police work is *not* the most dangerous occupation by far. Google it. It can be taxing work of course ,but then so is fishing during heavy seas.
    What if we all the construction workers attended a funeral of a killed comrade. Gawd, that would be a crowd.
    Having said all of the above I do enjoy seeing the mounties in their regalia strutting their stuff on a solemn occasion such as this.

  22. curious_george – haven’t you got a speeding ticket on a highway lately?
    I know you’re joking, and this isn’t what the thread is about, but here is an account from the Battle of Quebec 1759:
    “Bands of Canadians and Indians, mostly Abenaki, haunted the woods around Monkton’s batteries. Sentries were knifed and scalped. Patrols were ambushed and mutilated. But soon these guerrilla tactics backfired. The redcoats now longer panicked at the thought of Indians; the rangers had taught them better. They now turned their jackets inside out and dubbed the linings with clay. They had darkened their gun barrels, and took to the woods in small groups. Before long the Indians were complaining that the redcoats no longer stood still and allowed themselves to be killed.”

  23. Thanks dp. You said out loud what I was thinking. Surely it is an impressive gesture if some or most of the money comes from their own pockets.

  24. They certainly are well turned out and make a brave show. Pity their drill is crap.
    Its a sad, sad commentary on our modern Canadian governance that I have to say I’d feel a hell of a lot better about seeing the RCMP in numbers like that if I thought they were on -my- side.
    Given most of the things we post about here, and given that I live next to Caledonia, I don’t really think that anymore. Which is a pretty bad thing.
    CPC take note. Fix it.

  25. Very impressive but the marching is quite poor however they likely don’t do that much. A gathering like this would have really choked me up a couple of years ago much like watching the Snowbirds always does but, these days I cannot look at an RCMP officer without thinking of all of the corruption we have seen recently. It’s a shame.

  26. curious_george – the uniforms are, of course, ceremonial. The original point of the red was that it hid wounds; camouflaging blood and all. I’ll look it up, if you insist, in my real WWII-dated dead-tree Enyclopedia Brit.
    p.s. The RCMP is the only really recognizable symbol of Canada outside these borders, aside from hockey (I guess). Or polar bears.

  29. dodger- I surely wouldn’t go that far. Thousands of times a day, in every corner of the country, they’re doing some very good things. We only tend to hear about the few really bad things.
    I’ll admit, things like the musical ride are a bit over the top. But what about the contribution of men to train Afghan police? Sure, they may have been wrong to taser that guy in Vancouver. But how about all the times they talk someone out of a situation, instead of unleashing a hail of bullets, like they do in the US?
    If I have to pay a little more to keep our police traditions alive, I’m okay with that, but I still question the wisdom of sending 1000 working policemen to a foreign ceremony.

  30. The only trouble I have is that Mickey Mouse is at the front of the procession. Owned by Disney!!
    I feel for these men and women who lay their lives on the line each morning they leave their homes to go to work, and for that I am greatly and sincerely thankful!!!
    I feel a certain amount of apprehension/pride as this police force is loyal to the Queen and are agents for her and all that she represents. They are not there for the people as much as we believe them to be, but… they keep our country in a state of order by maintaining the peace and upholding the laws of the land. Our world is changing and this law enforcement agency is changing with it. I hate how political they have become, their integrity is constantly being tested as the media and the courts seem to throwing them to the wolves in our society on a daily basis.
    It is a job which requires our respect and gratitude, but we must remember that they do not work for us or for our well being.
    None the less, it is a great showing and a time of reflection!

  31. It’s a very nasty situation being killed in the line of duty and this is probably not the proper forum to castigate the RCMP. The force is about 20,000 which if I’m not mistaken includes it’s civilians. Is a turnout of over a 1000 the appropriate response? Just asking.

  32. The RCMP went in earnest, they know the lose of fellow officers to the act of a madman. How soon we forget the Mayerthorpe detachment being gunned down.

  33. Don’t worry about the parade square smartness. They are too busy cleaning up crap to spend too much time on spit and polish. It is why they are there that counts. I don’t march so good anymore either. Left foot wants to go faster than the right one.

  34. you know damn well the answer to your rhetorical question.”
    uh ken aint:
    it isnt a rhetorical question. I have NEVER lived in a jurisdiction where the day-to-day policing was provided my RCMP.
    there is a 2nd question I posed. the one about kevlar. is that the one Im supposed to know the answer? Im going to guess the answer is yes. why then were there a shocking 4 of them gunned down in alberta outside the quonset hut around 2006?
    questions questions questions.
    all apparently posed at the wrong time. but at other times I get the response ‘that isnt important now’. never seems to be the precise split second moment between too sensitive a time to ask and not of sufficient priority.
    when are the upper ranks of RCMP going to be drawn from those with long service at the front line instead of zaccardelli type political appt who got sacked/quit for lying to the commons committee about RCMP ‘non-involvement’ in the maher arar case?
    3w.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/06/zaccardelli.html
    ah but thats the hated cbc so just ignore the link eh?

  35. 1000, when 100 would have been impressive?
    At 81 yrs of age, I’m definitely becoming too cynical. I feel like Grinch.
    Good God. Where’s our brains that this makes sense?
    For four of our boys returning in coffins from Afghanistan – yes! Have you seen 1000 (or 100) red coats along the Highway of Heroes?
    I know, I know, they’re not police. Sheesh!

  36. Being a retired RCMP I believe every red coat there was there on his own dime. Those who weren’t on their days off, probably used up annual leave or banked OT to go there. There is a bond amongst police that cannot be understood by civilians.
    mike

  37. I used to respect the RCMP as a teenager. I stopped when they became a political organization.
    Whose standards the Liberals gutted in the name of Equality. As if a guy like me 5’7 would have been allowed & rightly not.
    High education with pleasant demure s for the most part. That ended in the 80s.
    There are still plenty of Great Officers but their voice has been silenced in favor of Federalism. Instead of the Citizen.
    Makes me sad to think there was no Police force finer.
    It used to be a point of pride they where ours. Now because of medaling a fine forces reputation has become tarnished from political interference.
    I still think most of the Mounties are sane, its the monkeys running them.
    Some organizations should be kept from outside influence unless illegal.
    The pepper spraying was the pivotal event that turned them from friends to adversaries after the Vancouver incident.
    I felt like probably a lot of Chinese did when the Peoples army turned on the populace. It busted its Myth of the peoples protector.
    That day on Tienanmen Square.
    The RCMP have become rotten from the top. The men they choose reflect the elite.
    For all that they have given exemplary service to this Nation for centuries. Regardless of political interference today.
    JMO

  40. I am always proud when Canada is spoken well of by other countries. This was certainly immpressive.

  41. B*tch,Whine and Moan,the Canuck identity.Chr*st can’t some of you people take one bloody minute to give respect and condolances as to what is happening here.

  43. Just to maker myself plain . I’m not against these guys going even on our dime. Its good for moral, if not for real honors sake. I just wish we had our old force back. I just want the political interference to go away!
    JMO

  44. Why so many? It only took 4 to execute Dkanski with the Taser at Vancouver Airport. But then again, the guy in charge got to kill another motorcyclist later on while drunk(allegedly).
    Horny toad

  45. Well, I just got the scoop from my nephew, a real Mountie. An invitation goes out to every police force to attend. They only get time off, if they pay their own way. Some actually take vacation time. Some might get assistance from the police memorial fund, and a few federal guys get expenses paid. So what it boils down to is most of those red coats paid their own way to the ceremony. That sort of changes my outlook.
    One thing my nephew also said is he didn’t think it was good to make such a big display. He felt it took attention away from the cops who died. He feels they should be the center of attention, not the parade of red coats. I have to agree with that.

  47. Upon re-reading, and learning the men were at this function on their own dime, I should add that IMHO front line cops are not the cause of the problems I alluded to, and they are not the problem in Caledonia.
    Poor/corrupt leadership is mud that sticks to everyone, unfortunately. Past time to get out the power washer and clean that off.
    ’nuff said about that.
    The men who died in Meyerthorpe died because they were ordered into a prepared trap set by a cunning enemy who hated cops. He had multiple weapons, prepared firing points, tunnels, the works. No one knew the extent to which the shooter had prepared his house and outbuildings for a firefight, and that is what got them killed.
    Four men could not have successfully got that guy out of there unless they stood off half a mile and mortared it for a couple of hours first. Maybe not even then.
    The men and woman who died at Lakewood were assassinated in a planned attack, and just like Meyerthorpe they didn’t have a prayer. No surprise the Mounties turned out as they did. Honorable.
    Curious-george, before you rattle on about things of which you know nothing, maybe a little google search would help you. Standard police issue soft body armor will -usually- stop pistol bullets and fragments, the better grades will stop buckshot. It will not even slow down rifle bullets of more than .223 caliber. Vests don’t cover the head, either.
    Body armor that will stop .308 does exist. It is expensive as hell, bulky, heavy, hot, and contains multiple rigid ceramic plates. Nobody gets issued that stuff except ERT/SWAT in big cities.
    Google is your friend.
    This vest issue is yet another reason why efforts to keep pistols off the market are insane. We really really really don’t want criminals using rifles. Pistols are much easier to survive being shot with. The best gun for a criminal is a POS Raven .22 They jam easy, which is what you want in a punk’s gun.
    It would be nice if the Powers That Be would stop making front line cops enforce policies which are both insane and make ME the f-ing problem instead of capturing actual criminals who do actual crimes like stealing stuff at gun point, beating people up, ripping off cars and etc.

  48. Doubt it is their own time and dime.
    Doubtless it is electrifying work…
    Not the most dangerous (like e.g. farming, construction, fishing, mining, trucking, etc), and reportedly well compensated with full indexed pension after 20 years service, etc. So this smacks more of union spin to (re)generate postive sentiment. One thousand is overdone, and bet you dollars to you-know-what there is second or third tier funding involved somehow. Which usually means the taxpayer as the ultimate source.
    It is a shame the force was irreversibly politicized. The only fix is to break it into a crime fighting side, and a revenue traffic side.
    The old corps was truly outstanding, the current rendition still has its traces, but regrettably it is a chimera. An inevitable result of our post sixties shaped society, and the change in commonly accepted highest values.

  49. dp’s cousin has it right, but the Americans were impressed. It was an very impressive sight, I’ll grant you that.
    Did you notice the almost perfect military formation? No mean feat that.
    ‘Course I’d have also been impressed with an honour guard of 100 at Dziekanski’s funeral, but I doubt his mother would have been as impressed as I.

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