In writing, reminiscent of Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War, local lad Adam Day (who took the pic), son of Port Hope lawyer Wilf Day, has published an account of his embedment with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan last year. Written in an honest way the story, which is Part one of ?, recalls the smells the follies and dedication given to the task of working in Afghanistan
Assignment Afghanistan: The Struggle For Salavat – Part 1 | Legion Magazine. I can't wait for the next part Bring it on Adam - well done.
6 comments:
"writing reminiscent of Hemmingway and the Spanish Civil War."
I'm not really up on it Ben. Was Hemmingway embedded with the military on one side or the other? Were his reports from the front (if indeed there was a 'front') published in a military publication first and foremost and therefore possibly subject to vetting?
So remiss am I on embedded reportage and those who practice it that I can only cite one example of embed writing that may or may not be 'reminiscient' of anything in the military vein. That of course is The Globe&Mail's redoubtable Christie Blatchford -a gal who never saw an imbed she didn't jump into no questions asked. So, while that kind of imbed examination of a guest army's intent has certainly coloured -or discoloured, if you like- my already cynical view, I look to you for education and enlightenment.
Who, if anybody, was Hemmingway embedded with -if he was ever embedded at all? And in what publications did his reports see the light of day?
I searched the Internet for a concise report of what Hemingway did in Spain and why he was there. Came up with this - a blurb for a book.
"The Fifth Column And Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War"
Featuring Hemingway's only full-length play, The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War brilliantly evokes the tumultuous Spain of the 1930s. These works, which grew from Hemingway's adventures as a newspaper correspondent in and around besieged Madrid, movingly portray the effects of war on soldiers, civilians, and the correspondents sent to cover it.
Of course he wasn't embedded in the way they are now, he just tagged along and wrote what he saw as a correspondent for the north American News Service. Nobody approved his stuff prior to filing.
Perhaps you might have been thinking of Georgie Orwell?
Great piece of writing from Adam Day. Great.
It reminds me of the asymmetry of war, post-WW2. The US would sprinkle the Ho Chi Minh Trail with small sensors dropped by helicopter gangs. Some sensors had parchutes and tangled themselves in the tres. Others dropped to the ground. They would pick up the vibrations of convoy trucks full of ammo meant for the commie home boys --Viet Cong.
The signals would satellite themselves to an air craft carrier in the Tonkin where fighter jets would scramble and toast the portion of trail the commies were using. Very Messy.
The commie Cong got hip and outclevered the yanguis. They would send a herd of elephants down the trail, setting off the sensors. The yanqs would obliterate the elephants AND sensors. The Conga just move the elephant carcas aside and voila, the Tet Offensive gets the provisions, and young yanqs explode.
I hope I'm not off-topic here. I confess I have not yet read all of Adam Day's piece in depth. I receive Legion Magazine and when the issue arrives I'll spent the proper time reading it.
But meanwhile, as regards Wally's post about Vietnam, helicopters, sensors and elephants, sometimes I despair at what our perceptions of an 'enemy' is or who that 'enemy' is or how the idea of 'enemy' has changed over the years. I despair because we Canadians live in the past -just like the Americans did in Vietnam. Here we are (and there they were) trying to fight an 'enemy' that doesn't have the common decency to wear a proper uniform, fall out at reville, behave in a civilized fashion in bivouac, salute a superior or drink Camp's Erzatz Coffee without complaint.
First and formost we, like the Americans a generation ago, are in a country we know nothing about fighting a war against an abstract noun and against an army of people who have absolutly nothing left to lose.
And so, when I meet with my own uber-patriot opposition that says to me "You don't support the troops???" like I've got horns and a tail and a trident or something, my only reply anymore is this: If a platoon of heavily armed Taliban riding in the most sophisticated equipment arms manufacturers have ever devised came streaming down Walton Street into Port Hope, to what length would you personally go to stop them? Would you high-tail it up to Gilmer's and buy as much high-nitrogen fertilizer as you could get and mix it up with an equal amount of diesel in the back of your Windstar and suicidally crash into the bastards to save your town and your way of life? Or would you just sit back and say ho-hum, invaders -what can you do?
See, I like to think I'd become an...an....an INSURGENT for Christ sakes. Yeah -that's right. I'd become a godamned insurgent and I'd be godamned proud of it.
So what's an 'enemy'? Is it what Pogo saw? Is it us?
Mr. Muffley, the thought of you with horns, a tail and a trident is somehow very compelling, stirring even.
Care to tell us how long your tail really is? Does it do tricks too? This reader wants to know...
In Belleville, I was approached by the college students council and others to negotiate the parade and rally permits from city council for the anti-Vietnam war demo. I did so, and was summarily invited to be one of the speakers.
When I told them that I believe the purpose of war is victory and that the Vietnamese people weren't worth the blood of young American men, so bring them home, was regarded as the wrong message. It didn't matter that I wanted the boys home -- it was the reason they couldn't stomach, so I was wiped from the roster of speakers.
Afghanistan was a cultural hell hole before the Sovietskies occupied it. It continues to be a hell hole, and will remain a hell hole. The Afghan people are not worth a single drop of Canadian blood.
Regardless of the pieties that peace activists trot out to fig leaf their call for withdrawal of the troops, the underlying reason is that our healthy and strong Canadian youth is our priority concern, not some poor destitute school girls getting acid thrown into their faces. Let the Afghans save their own girls, or not. It's their culture, not ours.
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