Honour A Fallen Soldier

Monday, March 29, 2010 03:45 AM

Standing at the Prince George Airport watching the Honour Guard carry the remains of Corporal Darren James Fitzpatrick across the asphalt from a flight that brought the young man home, it did not take long before the question of what we are doing in Afghanistan quickly enters your mind.

Here we had one of our City's finest young men, a committed soldier who had served his country and gave the ultimate sacrifice, but for what?

Yes there will be all sorts of people who would argue that we need to make our presence felt in that far off land. To others the question looms that many countries have tried to tame Afghanistan long before we arrived on the scene with little to no success.

It is brought home to you just how much a sacrifice some of these young men are making as you watched the flag draped coffin coming off the plane.

This was a young man, 21 years old, in his prime, the kind of young fellow we all would be proud to call our son or brother, it just seems such a waste.

When soldiers have died in this conflict with homes in other parts of Canada, it just didn’t’ hit home just as hard as it did Sunday afternoon.

Have we made a difference in Afghanistan? I don’t know , I leave that to people with a better understanding than I, it is suffice to say that Corporal Fitzpatrick paid the ultimate sacrifice regardless of how you feel.

To that we owe him the highest honour and regard.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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Posted on Monday, March 29, 2010 03:45 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: SummerSoul on March 29 2010 6:48 AM

We should not lose sight of the fact that this young man was a victim of a foreign policy dictated originally by the discredited George W. Bush.
We send our young men and women overseas to sacrifice their sweat, blood and lives in a futile effort to tame a people who others, among them Britain and the Soviet Union could not overcome.
We don't belong in Afghanistan. We are not seen by Afghans, except those who live by our dollars, as anything but the latest in a series of would-be conquerors.
Let this man be the last sacrificed in a losing cause.

Posted by: northman on March 29 2010 7:40 AM

"Have we made a difference in Afghanistan? I don’t know , I leave that to people with a better understanding than i"

-The problem is they will baffle you with bullshit into beliving we are making a difference... The fundamental of this war is it is a religous war that has been fought the last 2000 years probably even longer. The second we leave there it will be business as usuall..

Posted by: socredible on March 29 2010 8:02 AM

Afghanistan is merely a live-fire exercise for what's coming next. When that comes, which it will unless we make some fundamental changes in our supposed necessity to 'capture' foreign markets in an international "trade" which is really no such thing, we might be very thankful for a cadre of experienced soldiers and the lessons learned the 'hard way' on the battlefield. Since the 'lesson' that we SHOULD be learning ~ what really CAUSES war ~ will likely remain unlearned, our best chance for survival then might lie on what our military learned in Afghanistan.

Posted by: Flash MacTavish on March 29 2010 9:09 AM

I would suggest that those who have not worn the uniform are not qualified to comment.

This of course will not stop them from commenting, which is of course their right.

Posted by: Flash MacTavish on March 29 2010 9:15 AM

Addendum: It is not a Honour Guard, but a Guard of Honour. Pedantic, I know, 'tis a character flaw.

Posted by: gus on March 29 2010 9:20 AM

To which I would suggest that it is not those who are in uniform, nor necessarily those who have worn a uniform who make the decision to send people in uniform to far off places.

Those who make those decisions are elected by us. We have the right and we have the duty to let our voices be heard by those politicians no matter which side of an issue we are on.

Posted by: thewayiseeit on March 29 2010 9:50 AM

"Have we made a difference in Afghanistan? I don’t know , I leave that to people with a better understanding than i"

Ignorance of the issue is not an excuse to sit back and say nothing when one of our beloved sons comes home in a coffin. If we don't speak out nothing will ever change. We cannot blindly accept what we are told, but we do owe respect to this young man for doing what he believed to be right.

To the family, I am so sorry for your loss.

Mom of a former soldier

Posted by: Retired on March 29 2010 10:32 AM

�Those who make those decisions are elected by us. We have the right and we have the duty to let our voices be heard by those politicians no matter which side of an issue we are on.�

Well I emailed Prime Minister Harper when he was talking about more troops for Afghanistan and told him if he wanted our young men to die there that perhaps he would consider crossing the border to our friends to the south and join their military and wear their uniform. But he did not take my advice .

So I don�t know Gus I think you are leading us down a garden path.
Cheers

Posted by: gus on March 29 2010 10:47 AM

Yes, you are so right, retired. It is truly a garden path. Some think we are helping prtect democracy by all military action, when there is still much work to be done within our own borders with our own elected offcials.

It will be intersting to see whether the feds will cave in and listen to Obama's lament about not withdrawing our troops. Even thoough we are a small part of the forces there, Canada still presents a considerable legitimacy to the armed intervention there. That is nice to know from a patiotic point of view, but it also makes our decision carry so much more weight on the world scene. If Canada stays on, I suspect a few other countries that are intending on leaving may lengthen their stay as well.

Such a decision by Canada not only impacts the lives of our soldiers, but also the soldiers of other countries.

I am thankful that we have such people as Corporal Fitzpatrick who are willing to go to battle for this Country. But I am also aware that we owe such soldiers the duty of not sending them to fight windmills.

Posted by: Retired on March 29 2010 12:37 PM

And you gave us some food for thought Gus. Over a hundred thousand young men and some women gave their lives for our democracy and we have shunned that effort when you look at how our politicians respect the voters and the lack of input too our democratic governments.

It was a recent gathering when Mr Vandersalm gave us this bit of knowledge when he told us that , �We elect a dictatorship every four years�.Many of us have gotten fed up with the politicians that form our government and don�t even bother to vote. That is unfortunate because that begs the question posed by a famous philosopher Plato when he said,� unless you take an interest in those who govern you, you shall be governed by those worse then yourselves�.
Cheers

Posted by: SummerSoul on March 29 2010 4:18 PM

I would say to Flash MacTavish that those who "have worn the uniform" are not necessarily better qualified to judge than those who have remained civilians. In fact, it may be the contrary. I say this as one who was a soldier for over three years. Soldiers are intensively propagandised and can be blinded by a sense of camaraderie. I would better trust the opinions of one who has studied wars from a distance without engaging in one.

Posted by: the-grouse on March 30 2010 8:33 AM

It is not difficult to agree that Darren deserves our respect. However, it is not honouring his memory at all to leave to our very redoubtable authorities ("people with better understanding")the evaluation as to whether being in Afghanistan makes his death worthwhile.

All too often the "ultimate sacrifice" paid by young Canadians there has been dragged out as a reason to quiet down opposition to this and countless wars before. With all respect, men and women have died for ill-thought-out military causes and adventures since our ancestors were fighting with clubs. Children are still being told naive stories about defense of freedom as the rationale for what happened to dead soldiers (see the CTV story by way of example at http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100328/fitzpatrick_funeral_100328/20100328)

Honouring Kirkpatrick to my mind means asking tougher and tougher questions, like, for example: if Afghanistan is worth dying for today what will have magically changed to the war's justification when we pull out on schedule next year?

I am the Grouse and that's one old bird's opinion.

Posted by: Retired on March 30 2010 10:01 AM

SummerSoul, looking back over recent history wars have never been started by the military it has always been civilians, i.e. Hitler, Chamberlain. It was President Bush that marched the troops into Iraq and Afghanistan. However in a recent book, The Unexpected War by Janis Gross and Eugene Lang one gets a vivid picture of how the military played a part and were eager for war as they always are. Its their vocation
Cheers