Shameless Nationalist Sentimentalism

"The country the world forgot - again"

This "Personal View" article by The Telegraph writer Kevin Myers is, obviously, quite dated. Written in 2002, not long after the beginning of the War in Afghanistan, it was inspired by the otherwise-unmentioned deaths of four Canadian soldiers in a friendly fire incident.

The short article stands up well on its own, and needs little introduction. I have little to say about it but this: I strongly believe that we all owe a debt of gratitude to the brave men and women of our armed forces. We must all work hard to separate our petty political disagreements from the knowledge that our fellow citizens are, right now, at this very moment, half a world away working to make the lives of a nation, and by extension the lives of our nation, better. Regardless of our colourful and varied opinions about the tasks given to our armed forces, let us never forget that our fighting women and men, people we will likely never meet, make great sacrifices every single day to allow us to enjoy the rights and freedoms our society affords us.

In some ways I regret how long it's taken me to post this, and I nearly didn't post it at all, but if nothing else this is one article I didn't want to let myself forget.