IN THE
ARMY
NOW

In politics you hear the phrase “public service” bandied about a lot. I've certainly seen some pretty impressive displays of public service over the years, but the greatest examples have not been on Canadian soil. They've been in Bosnia, Kabul, Kandahar and the Persian Gulf.

Members of the Canadian Forces have a hard life. Never mind that they often have to risk their lives in the line of duty, but they must do so with a smile and without expressing an opinion.

Politicians of all stripes like nothing more than to use the Forces as a football for partisan ends. In Canada lately Stephen Harper has taken a page from the Republican playbook and is happy to suggest that anyone who disagrees with his policies is somehow against the men and women who wear the uniform of the Canadian Forces. The irony being that the men and women in uniform have absolutely nothing to do with those policies. They simply go to work every day, risking their lives and following the orders of their political masters. In return they get used as pawns at every turn.

My trips overseas have been among the most exciting and personally rewarding experiences of my life. And no matter what the future holds, no matter what political party is in power, I hope they are visits that can continue.

O'CONNOR SHOULD KNOW BETTER | OCT. 7, 2005

Some time in the future I will be visiting with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. I agreed, for security reasons, to keep my mouth shut about this. This morning, however, I discovered the Conservatives have no problem talking about the trip and—surprise, surprise—they are outraged.

In the Toronto Sun, Conservative defence critic Gordon O'Connor has blasted the Department of Defence for allowing “civilians” into a war zone.

May I suggest that as a former brigadier general, O'Connor should know that wherever there are Canadian troops stationed, there are civilians. Canadian civilians do much of the important support work for our men and women in uniform, including in war zones. And civilians like me, whose skills are woefully limited to strumming a guitar or telling a joke, have been making these trips since World War I.

It's called entertaining the troops. It's not a great sacrifice on the entertainer's part; in fact, it's a great privilege. Showbiz folk love a captive audience and we will gladly travel across the world and visit a war zone to find one.

If Canada as a nation is going to have troops positioned abroad, in harm's way, members of the Canadian Forces and their families have to know that the country stands with them. Mr. O'Connor is not sending that message.

In the Sun article, Mr. O'Connor seems to indicate that his real problem with the idea of “high-profile Canadians” going to Afghanistan comes from a desire to protect families. He is quoted as saying, “How are they going to explain to the families if some of these people get hit by bombs when they're over there?”

I would suggest they would explain it in the same way they have had to explain such occurrences in the past. I would also respectfully suggest to Mr. O'Connor that as an adult civilian, I'm allowed to make my own decisions concerning the risks I take in my own personal life. And don't worry—in the event of an accident, the taxpayer will not be on the hook. I have signed my release form.

For the time being, the Tory position is that visits to Afghanistan be limited to “Defence Department officials and politicians who oversee the forces.”

I can't speak for business leaders and athletes, but I can speak for entertainers. If Mr. O'Connor ever becomes Canada's minister of defence and he bars civilian entertainers from visiting the troops but encourages politicians to do so, he had better be prepared to put on a pair of heels and a dress and learn to sing for his supper.

WHERE'S MY ARMOUR? | OCT. 19, 2005

I have just returned from a week in Afghanistan. It would be near impossible to sum up the entire experience, but here are a few observations.

There are lots of rules in the Canadian Forces. A very simple rule is that you must have your flak jacket and helmet with you at all times, and when you are not wearing them you must know where they are. This is pretty important. Camp Julian in Kabul was the target of a rocket attack just days before we arrived, as was the Canadian embassy. If you're going to hang out in these places, it makes sense that you know where your armour is.

This does not seem to be a problem for most soldiers; I know this because when you look around the Canadian camps you don't see abandoned flak jackets or helmets. Well actually, last week you might have because I was there, and try as I might to keep track of my things, I kept laying mine down and then inevitably I would see something shiny or get talking to some soldiers who would then lead me elsewhere to meet other soldiers and eventually I would be on the other side of the camp with no idea where I'd left the bloody things.

On one occasion, as I was once again wandering around looking for my helmet, a soldier asked me sarcastically if, in my other job, I have people who follow me around keeping track of my clothing. In fact I do. It's called the Wardrobe Department. I chose not to pass this on, as it seemed a bit unmanly.

The other problem I would have is the briefings. They love to give briefings in the army. A briefing is a bit like school. At least it seemed like school to me, because more often than not I didn't have a bloody clue what anyone was talking about.

Also there is the matter of cowardice. Perhaps I shall write about my overall cowardice in great length at another time.

On the second last day of the trip, Guy Lafleur woke up and played ball hockey with the soldiers first thing in the morning, then put in a full day that ended with a four-hour flight to another camp in a Herc. When we arrived, Guy went and played another full game of hockey, at nine o' clock that night. He signed literally hundreds of autographs every day and seemed to accept that many men serving their country overseas were Leafs fans. I shared a room with Guy on a stopover at an airbase on the way in and out of the country; having to wake up Guy Lafleur at 4:30 in the morning so we could go get on a Herc was one of the most surreal moments of my life. Guy … Guy … Guy … wake up! Rapide comme une bunny!

Arseholes are a fact of life but, as God is my witness, I never met any on this trip, and I met about seven hundred people. This must qualify as a statistical anomaly.

This was my second trip to Afghanistan, and the capital city of Kabul has changed dramatically since Canada showed up. Kabul looks and feels like a city on the mend. New construction is everywhere, the stores are crowded, there is fresh produce in abundance and women are seen everywhere on the streets—many without burkas.

Canada has played a huge part in this transformation. Now things start to get real tricky. The bulk of Canada's troops will soon be stationed in Kandahar. This is the Wild West. Kandahar is, bottom line, far more dangerous than Kabul. Inside the front gates of the Canadian camp sits a British armoured vehicle that was recently hit by a suicide bomber. Because of the armour, everyone walked away from that attack. Canadians on patrol in this area now drive similar vehicles, made by Mercedes.

In Kandahar we were lucky enough to go along on a foot patrol. The kids go crazy for the Canadian soldiers and mob them wherever they go. They want high fives and pens.

CHRISTMAS IN FLAK JACKETS | DEC. 28, 2006

A few months ago General Rick Hillier promised me a Christmas I would never forget; turns out he is a man of his word.

This year, on Christmas morning, I was in Sperwan Ghar in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan sitting around a single-burner Coleman stove with a dozen Canadian soldiers. Rush was on the stereo, and we were watching a pot of Tetley tea bags threaten to boil. Outside it was wet and muddy, but inside the sandbag bunker where these Royal Canadian Dragoons ate and slept, it was warm and as comfortable as one could expect under the circumstances. Corporal Frank Farrell was in charge of the pot, and there was no top on it this morning—this was not to be rushed.

General Hillier is a very persuasive man. He is also a Newfoundlander. And while he is the chief of the Canadian Forces, it has been suggested that he might think he is the chief of all Newfoundlanders. He'll call you up and suggest to you that on December 25 there is only one place you should be and it's so special that by agreeing to go there you render your life insurance null and void. You aren't asked so much as you are voluntold.

This was my third trip to Afghanistan, but my first at Christmas. General Hillier was on a personal mission to shake hands with every man and woman wearing a Canadian uniform in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, and I was along for the ride. The way he described it was simple: “It's Christmas,” he said, “and all we are going to do is pop in and say hello to a few folks.” In Canada “popping in to say hello” at Christmas is just a matter of arranging for a designated driver or making sure you have cab fare in your pocket. This was a little more complicated. It started with a nine-hour flight overseas, stopping in Croatia for gas, and then onward to a military base that dare not speak its name or reveal its location. Once there we immediately boarded a Sea King helicopter for a night flight across the water so we could land on the deck of the HMCS Ottawa.

On this leg of the trip there were three other Newfoundlanders—broadcaster Max Keeping, singer-songwriter Damhnait Doyle and my old colleague Mary Walsh—and three members of the Conservative caucus—whip Jay Hill, MP Laurie Hawn and President of the Treasury Board John Baird. I was happy they were issued flak jackets and helmets because I had a sneaking suspicion that the combination of Walsh and the three Tories might make some recent skirmishes with the Taliban insurgency seem tame in comparison. If it came down to a three-on-one donnybrook, my money was on the Princess Warrior.

And so, on the night before Christmas Eve, our little gang of Newfoundlanders, along with fifty or so sailors, closed the mess on the HMCS Ottawa. We laughed until we were stupid. It felt like Christmas.

After sunrise General Hillier addressed the troops on the deck of the ship. This was the first of countless speeches he would give over the next four days. He is funny as hell and as inspiring as anyone I have ever seen speak. He makes soldiers laugh and then he makes them cry. He thanks them all in a way that makes everyone grow inches. From a show-business perspective he is a tough act to follow, but follow we did. When it came Damhnait's turn to say a few words, she sang a song, and if there is a better way to kick off an adventure than watching Damhnait Doyle and 250 sailors sing O Canada on the deck of a Canadian battleship as it sails the Gulf, I can't think of it.

After the Ottawa it was straight back to the base for a three-hour nap before a 3 a.m. wake-up call for the flight to Kandahar. Once in Kandahar, we had the standard briefing that is mandatory for visiting entertainers and/or the head-injured. When the siren goes, do what you're told; when everything seems fine, do what you're told; and when in doubt, do what you're told.

From there we went “over the wire.” It was Christmas Eve, and General Hillier wanted to make it to all the forward operating bases. These bases are all former Taliban strongholds. For the most part they are high points of land that were hard fought for. Some of the bases are nothing but points of land with soldiers living in tents, trenches and bunkers. This is the front line of a war.

Charlie Company at Patrol Base Wilson was the first group we spoke to. These are the men and women who are working under maximum threat levels in Afghanistan. They are out there on patrol every day, for days at a time, engaging the enemy. They have all lost friends here. They have a bit of the ten-thousand-mile stare—which is to be expected—so from the point of view of a guy who stands around and tells jokes for a living, this is what you would call a tough crowd. General Hillier was right, though. He told me that just showing up was enough and anything else was a bonus.

That afternoon we made our way by convoy to Strong Point West, home to Bravo Company. This was still Christmas Eve, and we arrived in time to help serve their Christmas meal. General Hillier worked the turkey, senior officers worked the potatoes and vegetables, and I pulled up the rear as chief gravy server. I must admit I felt pretty darn important serving the gravy. These guys get a cooked meal about every three to four days. For the most part they eat rations out of a bag wherever they find themselves. Plus they get shot at. Anything hot with gravy is a very, very big deal. As the man with the gravy ladle I was probably—for the duration of the serving line—the most popular man on Earth.

And so this year for Christmas dinner I sat on the ground in the dust and ate turkey loaf and gravy on a paper plate. Everyone except me had a gun. There was lots of talk of home, and like at anyone's Christmas dinner there were lots of pictures. At one point the designated photographers had ten digital cameras in their hands at a time trying to get the group shots.

Everywhere you go in Afghanistan where there are Canadian soldiers, you see Christmas cards and letters supporting the troops. Some of the tents and accommodations are decorated with so many homemade cards from school kids that you would swear you had wandered into an elementary-school lunchroom and not a mess hall. It's amazing to see groups of battle-weary soldiers wrapped in ammunition and guns stopping to read these things with the attention that is usually reserved solely for the parent. I was in a tent with two guys in their early twenties who were poring over a stack of letters and class photos and separating them into piles. I was a little taken aback that these young guys, in the middle of a war zone, would be so moved by support from grade-four classes until I realized the deciding factor for the favourites pile was which teacher was hotter.

On Christmas morning, the convoy headed to Sperwan Ghar. The troops here sleep in dugouts with sandbag perimeters. After the speeches and hellos, a corporal asked me back to his quarters for a cup of tea. He was, like so many guys here, a Newfoundlander. And so that's where I spent Christmas morning, watching corporal Frank Farrell stir the teapot while a dozen or so guys hung out and exchanged cards and had a few laughs. The crowd in the bunker wasn't there just for the tea. They had been waiting a long time for Corporal Farrell to open the Eversweet margarine tub that he had received a few weeks earlier in the mail. In the tub was his mom's Christmas cake. When the tea was perfect and our paper cups were filled, the tape was pulled from the tub and we all agreed: Bernadette Farrell makes the best Christmas cake in Canada.

The trip carried on. We visited more forward operating bases. General Hillier made good on his goal of shaking hands with practically every soldier in harm's way this Christmas. And by late afternoon we took the convoy back through “ambush ally” to the main base in Kandahar for the prime show of the tour, for about eight hundred soldiers in the newly opened Canada House.

Max Keeping was our master of ceremonies, General Hillier gave a speech of a lifetime, Mary Walsh made me laugh like the old days, Damhnait Doyle sang like an angel and the Montreal rock band Jonas played late into the night. I was supposed to take the mic for fifteen minutes, but I stayed for twenty-five. A tad selfish, but honestly I can't imagine I will have so much fun performing ever again.

Everywhere we went on this trip, men and women in uniform thanked our little gang for giving up our Christmas to be with them in Afghanistan. I know that I speak for everyone when I say we gave very little and we received far too much. We met great friends, we had lots of laughs and dare I say had the best Christmas ever.

MR. DION GOES TO WAR | JAN. 22, 2008

Afghanistan is becoming a popular travel destination—especially if you're a politician. In fact, for two years in a row now, it's beating Florida.

Basically, every member of Parliament in this country wants to go. This is retail politics 101. You get off the plane, you put on the helmet, you make sure it's not on backwards, you get your picture taken with a couple of soldiers and a few Afghani youngsters, you come home, you get a bump in the polls. It's almost impossible to screw up. It's why it's one of the few things that Stephen Harper allows his cabinet ministers to do without adult supervision.

It's also why Stéphane Dion has been asking to go for a very long time. And this past week, the Tories finally said yes. So off Dion went. And boy did he make a balls of it.

The man comes back from Afghanistan, and he says Canada should pull out of combat by 2009. Fine, that's always been his position. But then he throws in, as an afterthought, that perhaps NATO should consider invading Pakistan. Wow, I never saw that one coming. You know, it's not every day that a Canadian politician suggests invading another country, especially a country with the bomb.

The Tories, of course, loved this, but while Dion might have put his foot in his mouth, what the Tories did was far worse. When politicians visit Afghanistan, it's always a secret. Those are the rules, written by the military. The military are very, very touchy about this. They don't want the Taliban to know when politicians are visiting because then they become a target. And shag the politicians; remember, it's the soldiers who are guarding the politicians you have to worry about.

So Dion, true to his word, never told a soul he was going. His staff didn't even know he was going. But the Tories, they said, “The hell with the military,” and they had a cabinet minister, Helena Guergis, release details of the visit. Sure, Canadian military lives were put at risk, but I guess that's the price you have to pay when you're facing re-election in Simcoe-Grey.

Now, I don't know why the Tories did this. I mean, if Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae called the Taliban and told them that Dion was coming, that would make sense. But this is just Tories being Tories. It's like they can't even stop themselves.

Now it's over, I'm glad Dion made the trip, if for no other reason it shows us one more thing that the Liberals and Tories have in common: they both say they support our troops, but what they really love is using them.