*However, it’ll be a cold day in hell when the United States Marines take lessons from the Canadian Army.*
Ignorance and that attitude is exactly what gets people killed .
During World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps, in an effort to find quicker and more secure ways to send and receive code enlisted Navajos as “code talkers.”
Philip Johnston was the initiator of the Marine Corps’ program to enlist and train the Navajos as messengers. Although Johnston was not a Navajo, he grew up on a Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary and became familiar with the people and their language. Johnston was also a World War I veteran and knew about the military’s desire to send and receive messages in an unbreakable code. According to a 1970 interview with Johnston and a paper he wrote entitled “Indian Jargon Won Our Battles,” he hit upon the idea of enlisting Navajos as signalmen early in 1942 when he read a newspaper story about the Army’s use of several Native Americans during training maneuvers with an armored division in Louisiana.
The article stated that the Army included Native Americans during these maneuvers on the basis of the experiences of the Canadian Army in World War I, when the Native Americans acted as signalmen against the Germans to send secure messages about shortages of supplies or ammunition.
The Army’s program, however, was never given the priority that the U.S. Marine Corps assigned to Johnston’s idea in 1942
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/code-talkers/
March 16, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The top U.S. Marine in Afghanistan said Sunday that his North Carolina-based assault force has been overwhelmed by the welcome from Canadian troops.
“We are very much being treated like the pretty girl at the dance and it is fun to be in that position,” said Col. Peter Petronzio of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit during his first interview since he and his troops began arriving several weeks ago at this airfield at epicentre of NATO’s effort to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida in southern Afghanistan.
“Canadians have learned a lot of hard lessons here and have paid for it in blood,” he said. They have done some awesome things and have been very gracious in teaching us what they have learned.”
Returning quickly to the matter at hand, which was preparing his troops for their looming combat mission in Afghanistan, he said that having a chance to learn from Canadian soldiers what they had done right and wrong had been invaluable.
“I’ve told my marines,” he said, “the only mistake that is inexcusable is a mistake that somebody else has made already . . . If the Canadians need help, we will help them, just like I know that if we need help, they will help us.”
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=8fb87041-8c23-4b1b-a043-e08cbd6bcec8
Thanks.
You absolutely would not believe how ignorant (and how common) such comments are. I’ve heard them for decades and I just shake my head.