ENCINO, CALIFORNIA
The skirl of the bagpipes, the Highland Claymore draped in Black Watch tartan, the men in kilts, all were incongruities in this San Fernando Valley Episcopal Church. May 15 had been clear and warm, the light breeze in the palm trees promising a perfect California night for baseball or barbecue. Perhaps that was why we were fewer than three dozen who gathered that evening to mark the passing of four men personally unknown to any of us. A bored journalist asked why it was important that we mourn the deaths of Sgt. Marc Leger (29), Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer (25), Pvt. Richard A. Green (21), and Pvt. Nathan Smith (27). Because, it was explained, these are the four members of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry killed near Kandahar on April 17, 2002, during a live-fire training exercise when an American F-16 flying overhead thought they were attacking his aircraft. His friendly fire ended their lives. How we acknowledge their deaths will tell us a great deal about ourselves.
"America is not a country; it is a civilization." Thus Alan Gottlieb, Canada's onetime ambassador to the United States, advised his countrymen in a recent article in that country's National Post. He added, "a self-absorbed [one]." He is correct on both counts. Europeans sneeringly refer to that self-absorption as "triumphalism" when they're in a patronizing mood or "unilateralism" when their growing irrelevance creates panic in the ruling elites. But Canadians know their big brother better, and understand the complexities of his huge empire. They
recognize the self-absorption as an unavoidable outcome of being the world's only superpower, the font of virtually all innovation and daring, and the cradle of universal popular culture.
But they do pay close attention to how we wield our preeminence. Even though they wondered why it took us so long to enter both World Wars of the last century, they didn't see it as a moral failing. Meanwhile, they raised the largest (relative to population) armed force in the world for those clashes. Over 15,000 Canadians waded ashore on D-Day--this from a nation of 16,000,000! By the war's end, Canada had the world's third largest navy and fourth largest air force. In Korea, too, Canada's military presence was the largest on a population-ratio basis.
Despite their sacrifices, Canadians didn't feel resentful when our films and television virtually ignored their contributions in those wars. They understood this was the price they paid for being the most Hellenized part of the empire. But it did lay the seeds for Pierre Elliott Trudeau's vision of a Canada that would define itself not by what it was, but by what it wasn't--American. He made a career of tweaking the American nose, embarrassing us from Havana to Beijing. And no more military "adventures." From the day Trudeau became prime minister, in July 1968, Canada's armed forces were the centerpiece of U.N. peacekeeping. That this was generally the realm of third world countries was, it seemed, less painful than playing the traditional role of America's solid ally.
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