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14 Nov 2006, 8:05 am / Dont know
this is the speech that jeff gave at the elora legion at the veterans' banquet on the evening of november 11th, 2006, which tanker and i had the privilege of attending. i have reproduced it here exactly as he typed it, and believe that this is something that should have the widest possible readership.
I would like to thank Ashley Woods, and the Elora legion for inviting me here, I was overwhelmed and honoured to be asked to speak and it is my honour to do so today..
My Mother, Ellen is an excellent public speaker, and when she speaks.. I tell myself that THAT is the way to do it. She speaks clearly, keeps it interesting..Has poise.. Has confidence.....
Well.. A few weeks ago she revealed to me that she is TERRIFIED of public speaking, completely shattering that image and removing her as the example I try to follow, so now .. Tonight.. I find myself without a role model a little nervous to speak,
I deployed to Afghanistan on the 8th of August, I was wounded Sept 4th and by the 15th of that Month I was back in Canada. It amazes me to contemplate those dates. I experienced more in that month than in two previous tours combined. I do think it's been difficult for my friends and family to grasp what I've been through. They live in the Guelph/ Fergus area.. I live in Petawawa, from the last time I saw them before I deployed, to the next time I saw them when I was repatriated to Canada; it was about the same amount of time between my visits. But a lot can happen in a short amount of time..
I brought along a picture... it's most of my section overseas.. If you count the photographer, there are 7 of 10 members of 3 section, 8 platoon Charles company. All seven of these guys were wounded on the morning of Sept 4th, and 5 of these 7 were sent back to Canada..
The day before, we had launched Operation Medusa, Charles company had the first, and most important objective and once we had secured it.. The remaining companies would go forward and secure theirs..
That was not a good day, and we had to withdraw with 4 dead and a number of wounded; two of the dead were Frank and Rick.. Both of whom I had worked closely with for years and they were both mentors and friends. But we had work to do and the next morning we were going to go at it again.. We had a 5 am revile in order to launch at 7.
There were a lot of firsts for me this tour, my first tour in a leadership position, my first firefight, the first time I would command troops in battle,.. Soon after we woke up I was still sitting there, contemplating the objective area, thinking about the day before.. The orders I had given, the decisions I had made were they right or were they wrong? And I knew in another couple hours we would be tested again....
And then it happened..
I remember most the heat.. And I could feel it get hotter
The explosions..as they got louder..
The shrapnel and the debris more and more intense
The explosive energy rolling me across the rocks..
And in those furious moments.... I was angry...Angry.. Not at the army, not at whoever made this happen.. I was angry with myself. Myself..... because Before we left for this operation, I meant to write a letter to my loved ones, and I hadn't done it. I was so mad because I knew it was over for me and there wouldn't be that last letter...
But it wasn't over.. I laid there for moment, looked at my leg and saw that it wasn't too bad, I knew I had been hit in the back as well but I couldn't see it.. So I crawled to my kit..
I had received extra medical training before I went overseas, so I had the medical pack and a Job to do.. I could see people lying all over the place,
My whole platoon chewed apart in 2 seconds... A lot can happen in a short amount of time.
The first guy I crawled to was Bruce.. He's standing there in the picture on the ramp. He had a terrible head wound. At this time some guys were shouting,"Who threw ammo in the fire, Who threw ammo in the fire", and Rick, who's not in the picture was yelling again and again,"Jeff I need a dressing, JEFF I need a dressing" I hadn't finished tying Bruce's on and I rolled to look up at Rick, he also had a head wound..
This is where I started to detach, I felt like I was speaking in slow motion.. And maybe I was. Greg, whose also not in this picture, and the only guy not wounded in my section dressed my leg and I think he finished Bruce. My friend Donnie from another platoon dressed my back.. And then I was stretched off to the casualty collection point to wait for the helicopters.. That morning showed me a most incredible sight... that was both beautiful and horrible. The wounded treated the wounded as All available persons poured into us, no one was in charge, no one had to be. The guys were bandaged, stabilized and looked after in a frenzy of care and compassion. I will never forget it.
Sadly Mark was killed that day - that he was the only one is a genuine miracle.
Our current mission in Afghanistan is not always a popular one. Public opinion sways like a willow tree.. The naysayers can and WILL argue for years.. They can debate in articles until the 50th anniversary of the battle of Panjiway.. And they will. A little research will reveal that these debates are an echo of Parliament in the 1930's when Canada was faced with the growing threat of Germany and demands for participation from our allies. And you know… No matter what the circumstance, no matter how just the cause, someone, somewhere will cry out that it shouldn't be done. What are we doing there? What is the benefit to Canada by being there?
Soldiers are not politicians, we don't fight from an office. The reasons why we're there not so obscure when you walk those far away streets. When I was in Kabul in 2003 I was stunned to see all the kites that flew in that city, it was as though every child had a kite, and was flying it.
I asked the translator about it, expecting a cost comparison of kites to other recreational pursuits.. And he explained to me, that under Taliban rule, flying a kite was punishable by death, if you had time to fly a kite, you had time to read the Koran. But things weren't entirely better in Kabul, just after we left, a lynch mob tried to break into the local radio station, having decided that the weatherman need to be dealt with.. in Afghanistan, meteorology is some form of witchcraft..
Three years later in Kandahar province, the Afghani equivalent of redneck country. There were no kites flying. In that area schoolteachers are still being executed for teaching women how to read. Women have no need of such things, if they want words, their husbands can read the Koran to them.
You can disagree with the government, that is one of the wonderful freedoms we have in this country, we take for granted something that would have you killed in other lands..and these are the lands that the Canadian forces have deployed to. Should we be there or shouldn't we be there? Well.. WE ARE there, we are there to do a job, an important job, a just cause. Disagree all you like, but support the troops until they get the job done and get home again.
On the 17th of April, 2002 Ainsworth, Marc, Richard and Nathan were killed in Afghanistan and in the weeks that followed Canadians opened their eyes' and were somehow Surprised that the Canadian Forces had been neglected and cut back nearly to uselessness
The Prime Minister of the day, to justify some of the cutbacks, had stated previously, That Canada would not prepare for a war that wouldn't happen. And Yes it's true.. A Conventional war between the superpowers did NOT happen, but it was hardly an age of peace.
From 1947 to 1990 our military participated in 23 missions around the world, from 1990 to present day, there has been 53.. Thankfully, at last things have swung back the other way.. let's hope it continues,
Previous to 2002 Canada and Canadians had reached a point where they had forgotten... FORGOTTEN the Veterans, forgotten the military and forgotten what Remembrance Day was for. There was a time when it seemed everyone's Grandfather was a Veteran, every senior you saw on the street had served their country.. But as time marched on, and those men and women left us, our collective culture moved on....
In the last few years when I see school projects completed for Remembrance Day, there has been a shift.. These projects are "What remembrance day means to me".. And have themes of, non-violence in the schools, no gangs on city streets, helping out your neighbors...
It's NOT a bad thing that several generations of Canadians have no knowledge of war, but this is NOT what Remembrance Day is for. The poppy represents a specific phrase.. A specific phrase...and that is "LEST WE FORGET
I recently had a small interview for CBC radio. The goal of the interviewer was for my Friend and I to explore the connection between the veterans of old and the veterans of today. As a soldier you automatically have an affinity with those men, you empathize with their experience, you think that through training and service you can appreciate and understand what they went through. But only after you go through it, do you realize that you actually had no understanding, NO understanding. Of their experience or their sacrifice.
Most people, myself included, knew of the wars through the history books. Only in the last few years have documentaries focused Not only on the victories and defeats but on the people that participated in those battles IN those monumental events. Showing us a narrow window into the hardships they endured and their necessary grim resolve..
The Royal Canadian Regiment, of which I am a part of, has a regimental prayer. In Battleschool we were required to memorize it. To facilitate this my section would say that prayer every night, out loud to our darkened room. The second line of the prayer reads "Help us to prove worthy to accept the high ideals and traditions of the past, TO HONOUR AND REVERE THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE US.. And it is that memory, the memory of those veterans who attended this legion, and who no longer attend this legion that makes me nervous, that humbles me.
Look around this room, and this building. There are decades old pictures hanging everywhere. When you look at these pictures, these old fading photos of the youth of that nation, look not at the uniforms, at the equipment.. Take a moment to look at the faces to study them, wonder who they were and what they are thinking. Often in these photos I'll see a small group of guys smiling, only they heard the joke, Which was the funny guy in the crowd? The quiet guy? The keen guy? The guy whom everyone had to help out all the time? Think of your own group of friends and coworkers. Of a cross section of any workforce and you'll have these same roles filled.
What WERE.. Those experiences in training that they conquered together think of the friendships that they formed. The laughs that they shared. That family bond, the challenges they faced as brothers.. And the loss of those left behind
In my lifetime, even during my teenage years I can count the amount of Remembrance Day services that I've missed on one hand, sadly as the years have passed.. The ranks of Veterans on parade has grown fewer and fewer, there is a line from "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" an old song about the New Zealand Regiment during the first world war, and that line states, "Soon no one will march there, at all...."
In the last year there has been many new Canadian Veterans, and we are not the first this country has produced since Korea. Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, Africa, these are all places Canadian soldiers have taken lives and lost their lives.
The new veterans of today have an obligation to the veterans of old, to maintain this day of remembrance and the reasons why soldiers, not governments, go and fight
"To you from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high"
And we will hold it high…
Lest we forget.. Again
MCPL Jeff Rainey
Elora Legion Guest Speaker, 11 Nov 06
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