D Day Ceremonies

[Jon Skagfeld]

Been watching the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) presentation of D Day events at Arromanches, Courseulles-sur Mer, and Ottawa, Canada.

Impressions:

First the good news...in Ottawa, Stewart Loy and his carrier led the vehicular parade behind a period black staff car. This was immediately after the official ceremonies, and part of a roll past including current CF LAVs. Great effort, Stewart; you epitomize the dedicated restorer who really gives a damn!

Now the bad news...the marching contingent of CF troops in Ottawa was a horrible mixture of Air Force blue and Army green, all randomly formated. More on this later.

The ceremonies at Arromanches were quite moving and well orchestrated. 1 Cdn Para Bn Jan de Vries, as well as13 others, was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by French President Jacques Chirac.

The march past that followed was highly impressive in that most marching contingents were all dressed alike, i.e. uniformly. Their procession gave viewers that fascinating sychronized rhythmn of of well drilled, in step, troops.

Not so, sorry to comment, with the Canadian troops. There were different orders of dress, including kilts, mixed in with current CF green (See Ottawa above). To me, highly distracting and somewhat embarassing, having witnessed the preceeding and following marching troops.

Isn't the idea of a common uniform (oxymoron?) intended to imbue and instill into a serviceman a sense of subordination of self in order to achieve a common goal? If this is true, then our CF are truly diverse. That was not a polite comment.