Archive for March 7th, 2009

The November sky over northern France is grey and leaden and a light rain begins to fall—as though the whole countryside is in mourning—when the casket containing the remains of Private Ralph Tupper Ferns, 25, of the Royal Regiment of Canada, is carried through the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery in Cintheaux, France. “He should be here, with his comrades,” said Ferns’ tearful niece Janice Basilone following the funeral, during which she and Gary Ferns, nephew of the dead soldier, were presented with the Canadian flag which had covered their uncle’s coffin. “I feel he belongs here.” And here he is laid [...]

“He died pulling the trigger. He died screaming into the face of the enemy.” The Canadian army has a policy on facial hair. Moustaches are OK, but beards are pretty much forbidden without medical cause and even then growing anything longer than the allowed one inch is a sure way to bring a crusty sergeant major down on your own personal head. It is called a ‘jacking.’ And it’s what happens in the Canadian Forces when a superior officer has some kind of issue with you, or with your beard. Master Corporal Erin Doyle was not worried about getting jacked. He was, in [...]