I'll go back to when our battalion was in Germany, along with a very heavy brigade, from 1960 to 1963. This was a time when the Berlin Wall was going up, not down. It was during the Cuba crisis, when the world came the closest it has ever come to nuclear war.
We were deployed, meaning we were on what they called bug-outs, to our alternate general defensive position in the Fulda Gap. Very frequently there was a division alert, a brigade alert, a battalion alert, whatever--we were on the go. Where did that leave the families? The only contact my wife and our newborn babe had with the Canadians was Roulke, a soldier, who was the milkman. It was the same with the others who were living out on the economy.
Sure, the regiment did what they could, but we know now that we were canon fodder to delay the Russian hordes coming through the Fulda Gap, with our soft-skinned vehicles, the three-quarter tonnes, making them look like APCs, and so forth. We know that now. The families were hung out to dry. The government of the day provided a lot of troops and as many amenities as they had, but it went back to, “You've got to do your job first.”
We have come light years from that to what the Canadian Forces does now, particularly when there's a casualty. The families of those who pay the ultimate sacrifice have a tremendous support team. If there's a wounded individual, what facility is he in? The University of Alberta Hospital had a whole raft of them there from the 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion Patricia's, and right across the road was the rehab centre. There has been no expense spared in taking care of the casualties.
That's a long way from a soldier getting killed or one of the dependants getting killed over in Germany: “Right. Take them to the burrow and bury them. If you want to send him home, you pay for it. A lead-lined coffin is going to cost such and such.” “If you want to go home to see your sick mother, pay for it.” That doesn't happen any more.
Similarly, in the bad old days, as they called them in the EOKA campaign in Cyprus, when people were killed, they were buried there. There are cemeteries all over this world where Canadians are still buried. There are some down in Kantara near the Suez Canal. There are some in Beirut. There are Canadians buried in the Commonwealth cemetery in Gaza. A bunch of Canadians go to these spots every year on November 11 to remember them.
So we've come a long way from the days when the armed forces was very large. As I indicated, in Germany in the sixties and late fifties a tremendous number of Canadian flyers were killed—106 Sabre pilots alone were killed in training accidents and so forth. You didn't see the Governor General showing up when those people were killed. God bless her when she went to meet the aircraft in Germany with the four who were killed by American actions.
We've come a long way from when Corporal Mark Isfeld was killed by a land mine in Croatia and three people were on the tarmac to meet the body. There are now troops and honour guards, and the minister is usually there, along with the Chief of Defence Staff and so forth. We've come a long way.
Life has become very precious to us--that's something Canadians can be very proud of--unlike other countries where we have served where life is not precious. You can think of a number of countries where we've served, like the Balkans and certainly Afghanistan, where life is not necessarily as precious as we Canadians see it.
Those are just a couple of examples. The people we had serving in Cambodia saw the same thing. The ones we had in Somalia--never mind the incident--did an outstanding job, but they were let down by the system. The regiment was let down, as were the soldiers, and they were tainted by that forever, unfortunately.
So we've come a long way.
Does that answer the question, Mr. Chairman?