What constitutes a combat death? The Canadian media talked about the “the first combat deaths since Korea” when Canadian troops started getting killed in Afghanistan. I tend to think that getting your head taken off by an anti-tank rocket counts as a death in combat. That’s what happened to Daniel Gunther of the Van Doos back in 1993 while he was serving as a peacekeeper in Bosnia. Of course, combat suggests having the chance to fight back and that’s not something Gunther had the chance to do. But then the bulk of Canadians killed in Afghanistan have died as a result of roadside bombs and they didn’t have a chance to shoot back either.
It’s quite possible that the bulk of Canadian journalists don’t even know about Gunther. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the Canadian government lied about how Gunther died in order to avoid going off-script when it came to peacekeeping missions. The deliberate murder of a Canadian soldier would upset the plot line – instead it was claimed he was killed accidentally by some stray shrapnel. Secondly, until Afghanistan, most Canadian outlets didn’t care about the country’s soldiers. Stories I wrote for the Edmonton Sun would appear a year later in the Toronto based media as if they were new. News is like fish, it doesn’t keep well. We used to joke when Sun Media’s own Ottawa Bureau used to send military stories which began “Sun Media has learned…..” that “Yeah, from reading a year-old Edmonton Sun”.
And are combat deaths somehow more important that training deaths? Years ago, in an effort to do something different for Remembrance Day, I did an article about training deaths. Few people realise how dangerous training can be. The old “train hard, fight easy” doctrine comes with a price.  The number of training deaths suffered in the UK during the Second World War was long a state secret.

I’m not going to bore you by adding my voice to those wondering what the heck the Canadians and British hope to gain by joining the U.S./French air assault on Libya. The air campaign defies all political logic. The Libyans have to sort this out for themselves – we can’t save everyone. No-one wants another Rwanda but in revolution nearly always brings the monsters to the fore. There appears to be a leadership vacuum when it comes to the rebels and I’m worried about who is going to fill it. And let's not go into how attacking tanks and artillery positions counts as enforcing a No-Fly Zone
No, I want to talk about the Aussies in Afghanistan. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook it turns out that some of the Aussies don’t have a lot of time for the Afghans they are supposed to be protecting. “Ragheads” was one of the more polite names used to describe the local population. I can sympathise with foreign troops in Afghanistan because if there’s one thing that all the ethnic groupings there share, it’s an almost universal dislike and distrust of foreigners. The Afghans regard themselves as poor but pure and all they want is to be left alone. Sadly, over the past 200 years, the British, Russians, Americans, Pakistanis, and Iranians have all reckoned the Afghans can't be left alone. When I was in Kandahar province back in 2002, it was obvious that any continued trouble-free Canadian presence was heavily dependent on providing tangible and almost immediate economic benefits to the local population. But the Aussies who posted the derogatory material on Facebook were not behaving professionally. I bet the Taliban and their allies are have a field day posting the Aussies’ Facebook comments on thousands of Islamic websites. Not helpful, Digger. In fact, I’ve got to wonder is the morons involved should even be allowed near fire arms.
I’m a little disappointed because the Aussies I met in Afghanistan were all very professional – mind you they were members of the Australian SAS or on attachment to it. Great neighbours.  One day I might tell you about the day some members of the  Canadian special forces unit JTF2 locked themselves out of their office at Kandahar Airport.

The recent Coroner's inquest on a British soldier, Cpl. John Harrison, killed during the 2009 rescue of  New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell in Afghanistan got me wondering what I would have done if I'd been captured by the Taliban. I guess hope for a quick and painless death – or, very much less likely, a negotiated release. The Canadian troops I was with at Kandahar used to joke with me when we went to local villages that if I didn't stick close to them I end up in a “Taliban snuff movie”. What I wouldn't have done was hope to rescued – particularly if I'd ignored numberous warnings not to go somewhere and got myself capured through my own stupidity. Hostage rescues in Afghanistan are kind of dicey anyway, Farrell's Afghan assistant, Sultan Munadi, was killed during the rescue and Linda Norgrove was killed last year by a US grenade during an attempt to rescue her. By the way, I think the US military should get some credit for admitting it was responsible for the death of aid worker Norgrove.
Perhaps I'm being a bit  flippant here, but perhaps the New York Times could have arranged and paid for Farrell's rescue – I'm pretty sure the paper has budget not far short of what the British Army gets these days. There are plenty of so-called security contractors (when did “mercenary” go out of fashion?) with the technical know-how to conduct a rescue operation. Actions should have consequences and those consequences should not involve the death of another person.

A lot of the websites which seem to be aimed at squaddies and former squaddies refer disparingly to “Walts”. I don't think I've seen a dictionary definition of Walt yet but it seems to me to be a term for some kind of military fantasist. Could Walt be short for Walter Mitty? The fantasist hero of a short story by American humourist James Thurber.

Years ago I came across an Australian-based website which specialised in exposing military frauds. I think it was called Australian and New Zealand Military Imposters. Australia seemed to have a lot of Australians claiming falsely to have served in Vietnam and Brit immigrants claiming to be former SAS. That got me thinking about a fellah who regularly appeared in the local media claiming to be a hardened combat veteran who served with a non-Canadian unit. Like the imposters in Australia this fellah claimed to have served in a special forces role. I'd heard he'd been a cook on a submarine. I questioned a fellow journalist who'd done a story about this guy about what evidence there was to back up the claim of special forces service. It seemed to come down to a military discharge certificate – the kind both an elite combat infantryman or a cook would be entitled to. There were also some photos of this character holding a rifle with what looked like some exotic flora in the background. Once again, it could have been taken before this guy went out on another highly dangerous mission or it could have been a cook taking a break from the pots and pans to be photographed with his personal weapon.
Some people would, and did, say “Where's the harm?” in this kind of charade. Well, here's the harm. This guy was  spouting a lot of bullshit, both to the Canadian public and the young Canadian soldiers heading off to Kandahar, about War. He was  filling folks' heads with nonsense, gleaned from cheap paperbacks and Commando Comics at time when Canada was making  a very serious military commitment which has so far cost the lives of more than 150 Canadians in Afghanistan. That shouldn't ought to be encouraged.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking across the carpark at the local shopping centre when I heard a vehicle being revved high again and again. Knowing what awful drivers people here in Alberta are, I made sure I knew which vehicle the racket was coming from and kept a close eye on it. I had a feeling that it was going to reverse out of its parking space at high speed and I didn't want to be in its path when that happened. Right enough, the driver suddenly slammed it into gear and shot out backwards from the space. He shot right into a car in the next section of the carpark. I reckoned he might try to drive off without leaving his details for the driver of the car he'd just hit, so like a good citizen I took down his number. The guy saw me and got out. He wanted to know what I was doing. I told him. He accused me of being a racist. Did I mention he was from Africa? It hadn't seemed important to me but it obviously was to him. By the way, suprisingly, there didn't seem to be any visible damage to the vehicle he hit.