Swompdonkey

Grief, Part II


Christie Blatchford gets to the crux of the matter in today's despatch from Afghanistan:

The truth is that civilian Canada, increasingly disengaged from its military over decades of base closing, budget cuts and feel-good peacekeeping missions, was not prepared for either this place or this task.

It has been a very long time indeed since the CF have been involved at a battalion level in such ferocious combat, and the last time it happened, it was not in an instant-messaging, blogging world with TV cameras on the front lines capturing the heat and brutality and terrible power of war.