Armed Forces

Red Friday #2 – The Wave Seems To Be Growing

Mulder

Yesterday I wore red again. I also noticed that instead of 1 in perhaps 100 wearing red, I saw perhaps 1 in 20 wearing red. I had to make a beeline down to the Richmond Fair yesterday to drop off some things for our EDA booth and noticed the gatekeepers wearing red and asked them if it was Richmond Fair attire or for Red Fridays and both gatekeepers responded it was for Red Fridays.

My wife and I both were wearing red when we went out for our usual Friday night dinner (which happened to double as T-Bone’s birthday dinner – He turned 14 yesterday) and I noticed that on average there was one person in each family wearing red. My wife says that people just wear red, but I couldn’t help noticing it was usually an elderly person or the male in the family wearing red. It may have been a coincidence, but I would rather guess that people are catching on to this idea here in Ottawa.

Next Friday at Noon is the big gettogether on Parliament Hill from noon until 1pm. I wish the kids were out of school so I could bring them down with me, but instead I will try to hook up with a couple of other bloggers for the gathering and a late lunch.

On that note, if anyone in the Ottawa area is going to be down at the Richmond Fair, stop by the Conservative Party booth. I will be there from 9am until 1230pm today. (don’t forget to bring me a double double!!)

How Canada Earned Her Stripes

Mulder

If you have not read anything about the Battle of Vimy Ridge, you must. These few paragraphs from Pierre Berton’s book Vimy are dedicated to all the Dippers at convention this weekend. (ADDENDUM: You can add the left leaning MSM who only seem to focus on the Canadian who die and not the successes.)

The Germans had held and strengthened this fortress for more than two years and believed it to be impregnable. The French had hurled as many as twenty divisions against it and failed to take it. In three massive attacks between 1914 and 1916 they had squandered one hundred and fifty thousand poilus, dead or mangled. The British, who followed the French, had no better success. Now it was the Canadians’ turn.

…

The Canadian Corps (which included one British brigade) faced an incredible challenge. In one day – in fact in one morning – these civilian volunteers from a small country with no military tradition were expected to do what the British and French had failed to do in two years. The timetable called for most of them to be on the crest of the ridge by noon. and they were expected to achieve that victory with fifty thousand fewer men than the French had lost in their own frustrated assaults.

And thanks to the leadership of Currie, training and retraining on a mock version of the ridge back home, and the success of the creeping barrage, they did it. All in a mornings work. Battles and skirmishes continued on afterwards for a few days, but it was over. The Germans were routed.

In the dressing stations behind the old Canadian lines there was no sleep. Before the Battle of Vimy Ridge was over, the doctors, stretcher-bearers, and medical orderlies would treat 7,004 wounded men. Another 3,598 were past help. In sort, one Canadian in ten was killed or wounded in the four-day battle for the ridge. That is not a high ratio by Great War standards, but to that number must be add another 9,553 casualties suffered at Vimy in the months before the battle. Sniper fire, artillery fire, and trench raids took their toll. Put bluntly, to take vimy Ridge it cost Canada twenty thousand casualties, about a quarter of whom would never go home.

It was on this day that Canada grew up from being “that little British lad across the pond” to “that strapping Canadian chap who helps right the world’s wrongs”.

Red Friday Explodes Across Blogosphere And The Ottawa Valley

Mulder

Well today was a fun day. While driving to the office I noticed a few others wearing red in cars while waiting at … ahem … red lights. I nodded to a couple and tugged at my red sweatshirt. I got a smile and a nod back.

I actually wore a nicer red Roots pullover to work and the sweatshirt below while out to dinner with the family tonight.Red Friday 1 I also managed to finagle a red ribbon magnet for the back of my truck today. When they told me they only had French ones left, I told them I didn’t care and that we are a bilingual country.

Call after call to Lowell Green’s show were supportive of the Red Fridays today. Lowell and his folks were working frantically to get prepped for setting up a Red Friday on Parliament Hill to get an aeriel photo of a sea of red to send to the troops.

I noticed today that Matt at A Step To The Right has jumped on board, but when I saw a comment from Shere at Dust My Broom, it really made my day.

There is a call going (or already gone) from CFRA in Ottawa to a radio talk show host in Calgary and I suspect next week this whole Red Friday thing will be across the country.

For those who ask “Why not Yellow?”, the response I heard today was that the yellow ribbon is a welcome home ribbon for soldiers. The Red Ribbon/Red Friday campaign is just a way we are showing support to the soldiers and their families. It is likened to friends shaving their heads to show support for a friend with cancer.

if your heart goes out to the families of the soldiers overseas, then wearing red on Fridays is the way for you to show it. Wear your heart on your sleeve.