Defence Today

Rick Hillier is still grinning, even if just barely. After more than three years at the head of Canada’s armed forces and at the centre of relentless media attention and political controversy over the war in Afghanistan, Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier, Canada’s sometimes embattled top soldier, remains determined and steadfastly optimistic.

Hillier is optimistic not only about the mission in Afghanistan, where he says there is progress every day, even if it is slow and incomplete, but also about the future of the Canadian Forces, which he says is finally becoming an organization that its members […]

It is decision time for Canada’s political and military leaders. And it is no easy question they have to answer. Indeed, it is a decision that could cost many lives. The question is this: what role will Canada next take on in NATO’s effort to stabilize Afghanistan?

With the end of Canada’s three-year commitment to its leading role in Kandahar province coming up in early 2009, Ottawa has in recent months been buzzing with debate about what should happen next.

While there are many options—everything from continuing the current combat role to complete withdrawal—the most often mentioned new role is one […]

Part 3: The Fall of Objective Rugby.

Whatever the new rotation of Canadian soldiers were expecting to find when they rotated into Kandahar in August 2006, it wasn’t this.

They had trained for counter-insurgency warfare, but what they found was a lot closer to conventional war.

What they […]

Part 2: Death in a Free Fire Zone.

Having just been blown up, Corporal Richard Furoy lay on the hard Afghan earth bleeding, in untold kinds of pain and probably close to shock. Beside him lay the body of his friend, Warrant Officer Rick Nolan. Enemy rounds […]

Part 1: The Charge of Charles Company.

Within sight of the infamous white schoolhouse, epicentre of the insurgency in Kandahar province, the hastily assembled Canadian force entered the kill zone. An enemy signal flare shot up across Charles Company’s lead elements and there aren’t […]

As I mentioned in an earlier column, the Conservative government quashed the military’s draft of a new Canadian defence policy statement sometime in the late fall of 2006 or early winter of 2007. As of the end of June, no new policy statement […]

The whistle blows and two waves of citizen soldiers advance towards a black horizon that could serve as a metaphor for death or for the colonial shadows from which a young country’s nationhood would emerge. Either way, this indoor depiction […]

Families visiting injured Canadian soldiers coming from Afghanistan can rest in some comfort with help from a $20,000 donation made by The Royal Canadian Legion to Fisher House in Landstuhl, Germany.

There are two Fisher homes in Landstuhl across the street […]

Canadian Forces soldiers in the Middle East are far from home and living in tough conditions in an uncertain environment. At any time of year their mission is a tough one, but at Christmas–when family and friends are celebrating the holidays back in Canada–it’s […]

With the high frequency of deployment for the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, sustaining morale is crucial. Which is why now is the perfect time for The Royal Canadian Legion’s Troop Morale Fund to pick up and begin hitting its stride.

It is now more than six years […]