I saw this gigantic “Support Our Troops” poster hanging from a building in downtown Montreal over the weekend:
It’s interesting to see given Canada’s image as less martial than the United States, a reputation presumably earned by their sheltering of our Vietnam draft dodgers. It’s useful to recall that, Mark Steyn notwithstanding, America isn’t alone in sending troops into harm’s way. Indeed, Canadian forces are in Afghanistan taking disproportionately heavy casualties.
Yes, even French Canadians.
We visited La Citadelle in Quebec City, the ceremonial home of the Royal 22e Régiment, whose second battalion has done two tours in Kandahar and sustained at least ten combat deaths.
UPDATE: A commenter and a correspondent, both with Canadian Forces ties, note that the soldier pictured is not in the CADPAT uniform that Canadian troops have worn for the better part of the decade. Indeed, these appear to be the old NATO-standard woodland camouflage pattern BDUs.
I have seen some young soldiers in cammo patterns that aren’t CADPAT since arriving. Perhaps, though, they are some sort of cadets.
