Re: and the band played
Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Mon, 14 Jun 1999 10:36:18 -0400 (EDT)
Sometimes, it's good that he's a 'bowman', and not in the stern--steering
this canoe....
It would be far from fitting that a Canadian should jump into the Gallipoli
fight. Camille is more than capable of holding up the antipodean end of
things...
But I'll open up an old war wound from the other side of the pond.... WWI
also contained many definining moments for the (again) over-represented
contingent from Canada. Ypres, Paschendale, Vimy.... There was a time when
it wasn't trite to announce that every Canadian had a grandfather who fought
at Vimy.... I certainly did.... He was gassed, and survived, but he lost
his sense of smell for the remainder of his life.... Just imagine, Scottie!
Sixty-odd years without being able to nose a Lagavulin....
Anyway, in the Canadian case, a very strong argument can be made to suggest
that Douglas Haig (who's statue I once thought about bombing from the
Esplanade at Edinburgh Castle--which is, in fact, Canadian territory, ever
since James IV declared it to be part of "Nova Scotia", so that he could
raise the funds for his ill-fated colonization of Canada.... but that's yet
another story....) used Canadian kids as cannon fodder during several
crucial (and costly) battles in Northern France. His diaries are full of
incriminating comments about the 'colonials'.... more than a few thousand
of which are planted in French fields.
....Wouldn't you LOVE to know about the sorts of wartime experiences that
brought Sargeant X to the curtained English cafe for his transformative
session with Esme and Charles? (Somehow I've always felt that Sargeant X is
the closest character we'll ever get to semi-autobiographical Salinger....)
I truly wish I'd sat my grandfather down for a trans-generational
heart-to-heart before he died.... It might have done both him, and me, alot
of good.....
Cheers,
Paul
>Scottie Bowman, cruising for a bruising as usual, wrote:
>> It is, of course, a part of antipodean folk lore that
>> the great majority of the dead in that unfortunate
>> expedition were Australians & New Zealanders
>> sent there by the perfidious Brits to do their dirty
>> work for them.
>>
>> Just another long-tailed yarn from Down Under, folks.
>> In fact, the British contingent (a lot of them Irish
>> volunteers) outnumbered the ANZACs by many thousands.
>> For once the whingers are revealed to be not Poms
>> but Ozzies.
>
>Scottie - you knew I was going to take the bait at this one but I will do
>it gracefully. The reason the ANZAC casualties at Gallipoli are seen as
>such a defining part of Australian culture (to the point where we have a
>public holiday called Anzac Day) is not because most of the fighters were
>antipodean, which is an absurd thing to suggest. The difference was the
>horrific percentages of dead. If, and these are theoretical numbers,
>Australia sent over 2,000 troupes to England's 20,000 and less than three
>percent came back, surely this would have a far greater impact on a country
>which at the time had a population of less than 10 million? This was the
>battle in which Australia lost its innocence, and numbers have little to do
>with that. And surely you could never have the temerity to call complaints
>about war `whinging'.
>
>(However I'd like to formally register a complaint over the overtly `Thank
>God America saved the world yet again' message of `Saving Private Ryan'. My
>grandfather told me that being in the war was the great equaliser for him -
>he met people of race and social status he never would have otherwise. And,
>as an incident in a segregated movie theatre that he was in taught him,
>when the lights go out and the air raid siren sounds, you don't care too
>much about the colour of the guy who you're cowering in the darkness with).
>
>Camille
>verona_beach@geocities.com
>@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
>@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest
>
>
>