to move up and down
‘We were greeted by German machine gun fire’: Canadian veteran recalls ‘traumatic’ D-Day battle
When Pierre Gauthier first stepped into the French city of Caen, there was little to see beyond the sad remnants of a months-long battle. The city had been flattened. Rubble, destroyed buildings and the paltry ruins of a centuries-old cathedral, with its windows blown out, were all that was left.
To the eyes of the 89-year-old former sergeant from Montreal, everything has long since changed.
“It’s surprising. It’s very surprising,” he said on Wednesday from his chateau in France. “Here is this big, huge modern city. It’s industrialized, there are beautiful factories. There wasn’t much left of the city when we destroyed it in July 1944. It was not just the city of Caen, all of these cities were badly damaged. This country has arll changed.” (National Archives of Canada)
Nearly 150 years after conflict ended, U.S. government still making payments to children of Civil War vets
If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.
An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.
At the 10 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, more than US$40-billion a year is going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And those costs are rising rapidly. (AP Photo/Library of Congress, Alexander Gardner)
‘I will not forget my children’s blood’: Aleppo’s female sniper vows to take her revenge
Her fame has spread throughout Aleppo. Her comrades have nicknamed her Guevara, but to many residents she is known simply as “the female sniper.”
Standing stock still, her finger suspended over the trigger, she stares through the sight of her Dragonov rifle.
Her view framed by the jagged concrete edges of the fist-sized hole cut into the wall of her hideout on one of the most dangerous front lines in Aleppo, Guevara, named after the revolutionary, watches the enemy — government soldiers — moving along the other side of the street.
“I like fighting. When I see that one of my friends in my katiba [rebel division] has been killed, I feel that I have to hold a weapon and take my revenge,” she says.
A female fighter in Syria’s conservative Muslim society is rare, often considered improper. But she commands the respect of her fellow fighters, about 30 men and boys, some as young as 16. (Narciso Contreras/The Associated Press; Abdullah al-Yassin/The Associated Press)
Kandahar Journal
The National Post’s graphics editor Richard Johnson is on his third tour of Afghanistan. Here are the latest sketches from his dispatches.
Follow his work here nationalpost.com/kandaharjournal
On Twitter at @newsillustrator
Or see more of his work here at newsillustrator.com
Or contact Richard in the field at kandaharartist@gmail.com
Book excerpt: North from Pachino
A new graphic novel, excerpted this week in the National Post, tells the story of Canada’s involvement in the Second World War.
From the book Canada At War: An Illustrated History of Canada in the Second World War © 2012, by Paul Keery. Illustrations by Michael Wyatt. Published by Douglas & McIntyre, an imprint of D&M Publishers Inc. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
ANZAC Day commemorated around the world
Australians and New Zealanders commemorated ANZAC Day, honouring members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought in the 1915 campaign at Gallipoli, Turkey, during the First World War. In that campaign, 28,000 Australians and 7,500 New Zealanders were killed or wounded in battle. In the decades since the end of the First World War, ANZAC Day commemorates all who served and died in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. (Reuters;AFP/Getty Images)
Two decades of Bosnian war memories – from a photographer on the front-line
Looking from the Croatian side of the river Sava in 1992, we knew it was just a matter of time until the war would jump the river into Bosnia, just as it had, almost a year earlier, spread like a forest fire from Slovenia to Croatia. The former republics of Yugoslavia were lighting aflame like wooden sheds tipsily leaning on each other. And, once the fire started, there was no way to stop it; all we could do is watch until it burned itself out. (Photos: Zoran Bozicevic)
Photos of the day
Veterans attend Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge to observe a two minute silence as a mark of respect for the war dead on November 11, 2011 in Spean Bridge, Scotland. Armistice Day traditionally marks the end of the WWI when Germany and the allied forces signed the armistice signaling the end of hostilities on the Western Front. The cessation of the war officially took effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month and is marked annually by services of remembrance for all those who have fallen in wars and a two minute silence. (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Photos: War letters
Brothers, Stephen and Frederic Vickers from St. Catharines were prolific letter writers during their World War two service. While Stephen an instructor stayed in Canada, stationed in Barriefield near Kingston, Ontario, Fredrick, described as a troop leader with the 15th Field Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery was stationed in Belgium, Netherlands and Germany at the end of the war. They both attended McMaster University in Hamilton where their letters are now archived. (Photos by Glenn Lowson for National Post)
Graphic: Honouring Canada’s fallen soldiers
107,161 Canadian soldiers have died fighting for Canada and in peacekeeping missions. With this in mind, the National Post’s graphics team reflects on the scale of the sacrifices of our troops. Each of the 107,361 dots in this image represents a Canadian soldier who was killed in combat or peacekeeping operations.
Libyan rebels using Canadian-made reconnaissance drone
As rebel forces in Libya continue trading fire with forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, Canadian technology is helping them learn where to shoot.
The Aeryon Scout Micro UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), designed and built in Waterloo, Ontario by Aeryon Labs Inc., was chosen by Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) to acquire intelligence on the positions of Col. Gaddafi’s forces to help coordinate their attacks. In cooperation with Ottawa’s Zariba Security Corp., TNC troops in the North African country have already put the three-pound, backpack-sized drone to work on the front lines.
Gary Clement on Obama’s troop drawdown
On Wednesday, Barack Obama announced the start of a military drawdown in Afghanistan. Above, National Post editorial cartoonist Gary Clement’s take.
All of Gary Clement’s cartoons
Kandahar Journal: Grape hut patrol
We are sitting together on my railway tie when Private Jonathan Arseneau tells me. “We blew up once with our LAV just 300-metres from the gate. We were going out in response to a reported IED and as we pulled over we rolled on a pressure plate. It was a pretty big explosion.”
“There was so much dust when the IED went off … it was the dust that was already in the vehicle … I could not see my hand in front of my face. I had to wait almost a minute … so I could see if I still had my legs and my arms.”
Jonathan has great confidence in the LAV and never hesitated to get back in his replacement vehicle. “Two days later we were back on the same road … I feel pretty safe in a LAV.”
Last First World War combat veteran dies at 110
British-born Claude Choules, 110, believed to be the last First World War combat veteran, died in his sleep in an Australian nursing home overnight, his family said on Thursday.
“He always said that the old men make the decisions that send the young men into war,” said his son Adrian Choules. “He used to say, if it was the other way around, and the old… were off fighting, then there would never be any wars,” Adrian Choules told local media.
Choules was born in 1901 and signed up with the British Navy for the Great War at just 15 years of age. (Photo: Australian Department of Defence/Reuters)
