Orleans Weekly Journal
Published: Friday, February 8, 2008 

Understanding the three D's

Last week a friend sent me a PowerPoint deck with compelling visuals from the Highway of Heroes, that stretch of the 401 between CFB Trenton that runs west toward Toronto. Each soldier that loses their life in Afghanistan (78, as of filing) is flown back to CFB Trenton in a flag draped coffin then transported to Toronto for an autopsy.

This deck captured key events from the loading of the hearse at Trenton to several poignant moments along the route toward Toronto with cops, paramedics, firefighters, and ordinary citizens saluting, bowing in silence and/or draping flags across overpasses along the route. It is touching, powerful and sombre.

I received it a few days after reading the Manley Report (as it has become known) from the independent panel of esteemed Canadians that assessed our present mission and potential future role in Afghanistan. The report should be required reading for any citizen, regardless of your thoughts on the present Afghan mission.

In just under two hours of reading one is left with a real understanding of what the three D’s of foreign policy (defence, diplomacy and development) can accomplish when they are reinforced by each other. What our soldiers, diplomats, contractors and aid workers are doing in Afghanistan is truly heroic, selfless and morally right. There, you have my opinion on the whole mission, enough said.

But even if you vehemently disagree with this position, you can still support our troops. That’s right, the yellow ribbon on the back of the minivan says support our troops, not necessarily support our mission or support our war. The east end of the city is sometimes dubbed CFB Orleans … and for good reason.

I saw this firsthand as the federal Conservative candidate in the 2004 election. Pounding the pavement and hitting 18,000 doors over four months of campaigning, I met countless military families and veterans. It was always interesting to learn where people had been stationed across our country and around the world.

Our community is, compared to most other parts of the city, a military community. From seeing Chief of Defence Staff General Hillier at the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon to the thousands of folks who work at DND and share the express buses with us or thinking of my neighbours on either side, we are blessed to count them as fellow citizens and friends who chose to serve our country.

Of course there are those who question the value of our military or the role we that they should play in the world’s trouble spots, but thankfully, their voices are in the misguided minority.

For as the Korean War memorial on the mall in Washington eloquently reads: Freedom is not Free. Or as I once read on a church sign in the Glebe of all places, “Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice.” So to all our forces personnel and their families, two simple words, thank you.