To the editor:
Re: “Nothing ‘great’ about the First World War,” Aug. 29.
The Courier’s faux Cassandra Geoff Olson has unearthed another bone to chew on — how we describe and remember World War One. The mere mention of war sets him, like all limp pacifist lefties, to frothing at the mouth.
Out of the dog fight of his heated imagination and far-fetched analogies, four items can be dealt with summarily.
- The Great War: Great means big, not wonderful. That’s all.
- The 1914-1915 Conflict: Major media sources are currently honouring neither the beginning of the war nor the end. They are honouring the courageous men and women who answered the call to serve and the 60,000 who died in unimaginable filth and carnage.
- Gwynne Dyer: Dyer is to military affairs what Fruit Fly Suzuki is to factual science. If you are looking for authoritative analysis of war try looking up John Keegan, Jack Granatstein, Desmond Morton, Barbara W. Tuchman, Corelli Barnett, A.J.P. Taylor, etc. Oh, and young men die on motorcycles, but warriors fall in combat. This is a fact, not poetry.
- Embedded media who aid and abet regime change spin: Olson has the temerity to sneer at such distinguished Canadian journalists as the inimitable Christie Blatchford (National Post) and the gutsy Scott Taylor (Esprit de Corps) who’ve been there, done that. Any number of combat correspondents and photographers have been killed on the job. Olson has, um…
Soldiers are reliably resolute in commemorating military campaigns and honouring their fallen comrades. So are most thoughtful Canadians even if their knowledge of the details is sketchy.
But none of them would be so egregiously craven and stupid as to equate the significance of the Great War with Snoop Dogg.
Major (retired) Peter E. Jarvis,
Vancouver
