Quote:
Originally posted by Tom Earp
Rob, tell me if I dont know about this, but, for the unknowing, are there/were there not members of different Military in situations that most never knew about ?
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Actually quite a few... the situation was reversed in WWI and WWII with many US citizens heading north to sign on to the Canadian military and serve with our miltary during those wars. However since the US eventually did get involved in those wars, the issue never came-up politically (well in a major way)... and many of these "Eagles" as they where called eventually served with the US Army.. including the founder of the Sniper School - and the guy who led the last bayonet charge by US forces (in Korea).
The issue only really comes to a head when politics get involved on way or the other - Vietnam became a major issue because of the "deserter issue". Since the number of deserters fleeing to Canada was a mjor political issue, and the party in power had publically supported granting them asylum here - because of what they saw as the illegal nature of the Vietnam War (deja vu here) - they couldn't very well be seen supporting the position of Canadian citizens participating in that very same 'illegal' war - hence the legal position on those citizens who did (although it was never really enforced).
As for situations where members of the military are where people don't really know about - A fine current example is over in Jordan - yes Canada has sent no troops to Iraq, nor does Canada support the Iraq War... it does however support the reconstruction of Iraq; so thats where the election monitors (headed by Canada) where mainly stationed - and that is where the RCMP and some MPs on loan are training an average of 3000 Iraqi police (civilian and military) every 8 weeks. Does the general public in Canada or America know about it - nope... because they don't want to advertise. It has appeared in some magazines up here, but it never caught the notice of the main stream media - because the military members serving in Jordan are all Reservists who happen to be police officers full time - so technically they are serving in their capacity as police officers and trainers not military members.