The cost of war.

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K62 said:
My friend, we obviously see the meaning of these coffins returning home two different ways.

From reading your last post, it looks like all those coffins represent to you is "death".

To ME those coffins represent the cost of freedom, they represent the brave men and women that died for an IDEA, whether they agreed with it or not. Most of all they represent the truth, and the god awful shitty mess of war.

And please don't speak for the world, saying we were not involved on a personal level regarding the concentration camps of world war two. Canada entered the war in 1939! We had 42,000 people killed from a country of only 11,000,000. My grandfathers fought in Italy and in Germany! My uncle was shot in Germany and had to live most of his life with a seized hip that was eventually amputated. Don't tell me that we never got personal against the Germans and that they were doing.



cemetary017qb.jpg


Here is a grave yard filled with Canadians after the ill-fated raid on Dieppe.

Like coffins of soldiers, to some a military graveyard may only represent death.

I don't know what you see when you look at this image above, but I see a lot more than just "death".

It can be a real wake up call.
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Perhaps you misunderstood. Those men died. Doesn't matter whether they died defending freedom, or died in the rape of Nanking. I'm talking of respect for the dead, and you're talking about respect for a cause. Why they died is important, but the fact remains that they are dead. There's no controversy here...just a thought that the dead should be honored unless they did something horrendously evil.
 
MrBishop said:
Gonz - you're not in Iraq because of 9/11... that's why you and a bunch of other countries are in Afghanistan.
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Ultimately, yea, that's exactly why we're there. Broken UN mandates, WMDs, hundreds of thousands in mass graves, among others, is the immediate reasoning. Taking a broken country & making it an ally, an ally with democratic leanings & a Constitution, an ally that allows its people freedom to govern themselves, an ally that shows the entire region that it can & will be done - undermining the will and necessity of the terrorists, an Arab ally in the war on terrorism.

We're in Iraq so we don't have to fight the enemy in Buffalo. We're in Iraq so the enemy is overrun but the one thing it can't stand at home...freedom for it's own.
 
Gonz said:
Ultimately, yea, that's exactly why we're there. Broken UN mandates, WMDs, hundreds of thousands in mass graves, among others, is the immediate reasoning. Taking a broken country & making it an ally, an ally with democratic leanings & a Constitution, an ally that allows its people freedom to govern themselves, an ally that shows the entire region that it can & will be done - undermining the will and necessity of the terrorists, an Arab ally in the war on terrorism.

We're in Iraq so we don't have to fight the enemy in Buffalo. We're in Iraq so the enemy is overrun but the one thing it can't stand at home...freedom for it's own.
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The history books will tell the tale of how succesful that undertaking will prove to be.
 
Gato_Solo said:
Perhaps you misunderstood. Those men died. Doesn't matter whether they died defending freedom, or died in the rape of Nanking. I'm talking of respect for the dead, and you're talking about respect for a cause. Why they died is important, but the fact remains that they are dead. There's no controversy here...just a thought that the dead should be honored unless they did something horrendously evil.
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I don't understand what is so dishonourable about showing these anonymous fallen heroes returning to their home land.

We show it in Canada, families don't get upset about it. I know that I wouldn't.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000752369
Lt. Col. Pete Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard, told CBS: "What we thought was, we're going to do what the family asked us to do."
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At least I am not the only one that feels the opposite of you, in that it is dishonourable NOT to show these photos.
 
I can only speak for myself.


If I had a relative or dear friend who was a member of the military, and that person should be killed in action on foreign soil, I would prefer the coffin not be shown on television.

I am fortunate. I do not know anyone personally who died in military action, at any point in time. My uncle received a Purple Heart for actions in the Phillipines during WWII; his actions directly saved the lives of an estimated 35 to 40 fellow soldiers. Thankfully, he returned home alive and relatively uninjured save a bullet in the leg. Other than that, I have never been in a position to know first hand what a surviving family member goes through when that happens. I pray I never do find out.

That being said, I imagine that the grief would be too powerful to bear the knowledge that millions of anti-war loonies were using images of my loved one's coffin to further their asinine agenda. I imagine that my pride in my loved one's sacrifice would be too great to prevent me from remaining silent and respecting said loonies' right to free speech - a right they have because of my loved one's sacrifice.

I'm from a part of this country where things work a little different sometimes. We're on the whole a private people who don't want a lot of outside attention. We'd be just as happy to live out our lives without the clamor and disruption that are so inherent elsewhere. Death to us is a personal matter. We still pull our cars to the shoulder of the road and stop when we meet a funeral procession. We still bring food to the family when someone dies. We still look after widows and orphans when daddy passes on, often for years and years. I myself have given or offered to give beans from the garden and such to a lady whose husband died of cancer about three years ago, because that's just what you do around here. To think that some liberal goofball somewhere was using images of that casket containing the body of my father, or brother, or sister, or best friend, to sit back and bitch about something they know nothing about...well, that disturbs me greatly.

It's a matter of respect, and I'm sorry if this steps on anyone's toes, but it is not open to debate by a foreigner whose own country ain't quite pulling their own weight in this conflict. If you really want a voice in what we do over there, maybe you should pitch in. Then we might listen. Until then, how about you simply being respectfully quiet and allowing us to bury our dead?

Thank you.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
It's a matter of respect, and I'm sorry if this steps on anyone's toes, but it is not open to debate by a foreigner whose own country ain't quite pulling their own weight in this conflict. If you really want a voice in what we do over there, maybe you should pitch in. Then we might listen. Until then, how about you simply being respectfully quiet and allowing us to bury our dead?

Thank you.
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/me opens my mouth slowly
If you're talking about Iraq and Iraq alone...I might agree with that last statement... but we're talking about war in general (or if you will..this 'war on terrorism') so it pains me to have to remind you that we're allies, we're involved, we're losing soldiers over yonder and it ain't stopping us from sending more over there (middle-east)...my brother-in-law being no exception as he's ruturning to his 2nd tour in Afghanistan in about 1 1/2 months.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
That statement was directed at a different foreigner.
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Granted...but still a Canadian (K62) foreigner who happens to be in our navy and is thus a Canadian soldier. :D

**unless you were aiming it at someone else...in which case...it applies, but with slightly less vigor.**
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
It's a matter of respect, and I'm sorry if this steps on anyone's toes, but it is not open to debate by a foreigner whose own country ain't quite pulling their own weight in this conflict. If you really want a voice in what we do over there, maybe you should pitch in. Then we might listen. Until then, how about you simply being respectfully quiet and allowing us to bury our dead?
Thank you.
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Don't worry about insulting me either. Quite frankly, you can't.

Now seriously, Don't be so ignorant as to think that your opinion is the only one. Boarders aside, I am a human being that has the utmost respect for my fellow human beings that died in Iraq.

That being said, I imagine that the grief would be too powerful to bear the knowledge that millions of anti-war loonies were using images of my loved one's coffin to further their asinine agenda.
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Open up your mind, did you even consider that there may be millions more that see these images and actually contemplate the sacrifice that these fellow human beings made?


It's a matter of respect, and I'm sorry if this steps on anyone's toes, but it is not open to debate by a foreigner whose own country ain't quite pulling their own weight in this conflict. If you really want a voice in what we do over there, maybe you should pitch in.
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In this conflict? What is this conflict about again? Terrorism?
"Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun" - George W. Bush

Don't be so ignorant,
We are in Afghanistan fighting against terrorism.
We have been in Afghanistan fighting terrorism as long as you have been.
We have had our soldiers killed in this war on terrorism.
I have had family members fight in this war against terrorism
I have sailed with CF members that fought in this war against terrorism

I may not be American, but I do hold the highest degree of respect to those soldiers who have died for their country.

We just have opposing views on this subject as to what we see as respectful.

cheers, all the best.
 
Opposing views on what is respectful. Yes.

I believe that our habit of publicly hailing and celebrating the lost as sadly fallen but returning heroes is the most respect we as the public can offer. I would hate to think in this age of information that one man died for me, and for my country, that I wasn't aware of and didn't take a moment to appreciate.
 
Fair enough, but I can do so without the image of their casket on national television. That to me is too private an issue for mass consumption.
 
MrBishop said:
Granted...but still a Canadian (K62) foreigner who happens to be in our navy and is thus a Canadian soldier. :D

**unless you were aiming it at someone else...in which case...it applies, but with slightly less vigor.**
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Canada has a Navy? When the hell did that happen? :D
 
hehehe

That's what I was thinkingof when I saw you were in the Navy.

Thanks for da linkage.

Take care of yerself out there man.
 
K62 said:
I don't understand what is so dishonourable about showing these anonymous fallen heroes returning to their home land.
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Not speaking for Gato but addressing the question in general...

The reason people wish to see the coffins on our television is not to honor the fallen. It is a political maneuver, started during the Vietnam War, to dishonor the war & the Commander in Chief. If they were to show, say, :30 seconds of footage, daily or as needed, of flag covered caskets & it ended there, no opining, no tsk-tsk-tsking, no stories of how well or badly the war goes in conjuction with the images it'd be okay.

Unfortunately, those images would show up in commercials denouncing the war. They'd be seen in movies by fat movie producers lying to the public. They'd be used as negative imagery. They'd be used, as has been done before, to help weaken the resolve of a nation in time of crisis. We didn't show 400,000 caskets in the 40's. There's no reason to show a couple of thousand now, with all we've learned.
 
*inserts a rant about changing that people to "some" people and lets the rest of the point stand*
 
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