Late Sargeant Marc Leger for example.
May God rest his soul.
Posted on 08/07/2003 8:47:00 PM PDT by Destro
Thursday, Aug. 7, 2003
It's time to get peacekeepers out of Bosnia: commander
Canadian Press
Fredericton — Canada should consider ending its peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the commander of the army said Thursday.
Lt.-Gen. Richard Hillier said foreign deployments have stretched this country's land forces to its limit.
"Our soldiers would like to see the end of the commitment in Bosnia, without question," Mr. Hillier said in an interview. "They are tired of going back a second, third, fourth or even fifth time.
"Most of our soldiers, the vast majority in the army, have already served there, and they fail to see . . . the usefulness of the mission continuing in its present form."
Mr. Hillier made the remarks while at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown attending a graduation parade for 158 officer cadets. They had just completed the common army phase course, a program all officers are required to finish.
"We don't want to leave unilaterally but we want to be out of there as soon as possible, no question about it."
The army has 1,227 peacekeepers in the Balkans and is in the process of deploying close to 2,000 more into Afghanistan. Canada also has smaller numbers of soldiers in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, Sinai, Sierra Leone and Congo.
The army commander said his land forces will not be able to sustain such strain beyond another year.
"We have to have a reduction in operational capabilities, without question," Mr. Hillier said. "It is difficult to be able to generate the soldiers in units and train cohesive units to go off and do those missions."
Mr. Hillier didn't go as far as to say Canadian troops were not making a difference in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He said the country still cannot stand on its own without some international assistance and guarantees of security.
"At the same time, every soldier would prefer to go off on a new mission, one in a different part of the world, as opposed to back to the same one. Our soldiers are professionals and they know we have a job to do and that we are going to send units into Bosnia for the foreseeable future."
With regard to Afghanistan, Mr. Hillier, who just returned from the area, said he was confident Canadian soldiers were ready for the challenge.
"Notwithstanding, Afghanistan is a dirty and dangerous place," he said.
"There is a significant threat, both inside the country and outside the country, so our soldiers will have to be vigilant and use all of their training capacity and capability. It's just not a different country, it's a different world."
If it's true that everyone's been there 5 times, and if the article is correct that their contingent is 1200 troops, then that equals an extremely small Army.
Late Sargeant Marc Leger for example.
May God rest his soul.
I guess that would be hard to see, especially since no reason for sending troops to Bosnia was ever given. When are our troops coming home?
(Odd, isn't it? All these DemonRATs complaining about the cost of the war in Iraq--has a single one of them, ever, suggested saving money by pulling our troops out of Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, and wherever else they're serving without a clear reason for being there? Surely, those savings would more than pay for Iraq.)
NATO's supreme commander in Europe said in Brussels on 4 August that it would be "premature" for the EU to take over the international military mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina from SFOR, "The Independent" reported.
U.S. Marine General James Jones added that the EU should concentrate instead on developing and expanding its current police mission, noting that "sooner rather than later the only thing that [will be]required [in Bosnia] is police, tough police."
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