Of Heroes and Cowards

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Back in the early 1960's I was living at the Pension Swiss in Brussels, and doing my fair share of travelling about Europe. Years later, while at home for my mother's funeral, someone found a large packet of letters (par Avion) among her things. I still possess them. They were the letters I sent home on a weekly basis from Belgium. Until that day I had no idea she had kept them but I was moved to realize she thought them of some value. For  some reason the recent events in Paris urged me to search them out and reminisce.

Once, when in Paris for a few days, I was walking along a side street when two armed Sûreté Nationale (now Police Nationale) approached wearing side arms. One took my left arm, the other my right, and quickly ushered me into the foyer of a nearby apartment building. I was told to remain there until the motorcycle entourage, transporting President Charles de Gaulle, had passed by.

The French are very good at security and I was quite surprised when I heard the news on Friday night that another attack on innocent civilians had occurred.  Bombs went off in the Stade de France during a soccer game and many innocent people in the Le Carillon Restaurant, and the Bataclan Concert Hall, were slaughtered or seriously wounded. It is said that ISIS was responsible and that they, in their religious fervor, said they were attacking  "the capital of adultery and vice". Is there not something wrong with this logic! What vice could be worse than wounding and killing innocent young people attending a rock concert on a Friday evening? It appears, as someone once wrote, 'men kill over religion, land, natural resources and intractable hate' - and those cowards were taught to believed they were purifying the world!

"We have not defeated the idea, we do not even understand the idea." (U.S. Major General M.K. Nagata talking about ISIS.) He got that right. What is happening today is a new form of warfare and new ideas will be required to resolve a very troubled world.

On November 11th, just a few days prior to the events in Paris, our nation paused to remember the recent wars of the past. War is not a new experience for Canadians. I was a teenager during WW11 and even though we did not have the social and professional networks we have today, we were kept informed. We knew who our heroes were and we were proud of their sacrifices. Today Canadians are part of the military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It rages as we speak. Canada is again at war and yet, we know so little about the enemy or the heroes who will be returning home soon!

I would like to return to France someday and visit the beautiful city of Paris one more time. I hope that day comes soon. Be brave 'cousins'.

And that's Dick's View of the World this Week

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