To Walter Natynczyk
Dear Walt,
Service is love made visible. That kind of love is usually service to family, country, comrades, God, or humanity, whether these people are neighbours on your street or strangers on the other side of the world. Your career in the Canadian Army – dedicated to the service of our military and by extension to Canada – is a living example of that ethos.
You were kind enough to invite me to a gathering of your Army friends to mark your retirement from service in the Canadian Armed Forces. I’ll always remember what you said at the mess hall party, because it perfectly sums up the idea of service as love made visible. You told us that the biggest change in your professional life came when you were promoted to lieutenant colonel at an unusually young age. You were thrilled, because while you knew from the time you were a teenager that you wanted a career in the military, you never believed you could achieve such a rank, let alone reach it so soon. That elation lasted for twenty-four hours. Then, you told us, you realized in a moment of profound insight you must shift your focus. You no longer thought of your great personal achievement but about how you were going to serve the regiment you were assigned to lead. A great burden came off your shoulders when you became aware you were no longer going to centre your career on advancing yourself but on serving others. You moved from first-person singular to first-person plural – from me to we in your centre of gravity. You revealed that awareness of service beyond self for the rest of your career. It’s why I’ve told you that, if I had one wish in life, it would be that we had a farm next to yours so that whenever my grandchildren were there I could send them over the fence to help you cut wood or mow the grass – for some of your values, especially that of service, surely would rub off on them.
Your career is also a credit to the Canadian Armed Forces. Through your example, our armed forces as an institution showed all its personnel that service to comrades and to country is a springboard to further advancement, not an impediment to it. I witnessed this celebration of service time and again as governor general at military events and functions across Canada and around the world – never more clearly than at ceremonies to repatriate troops from service in Afghanistan. I know those ceremonies – and their honour of service – meant a great deal to you, too. Canada’s men and women in uniform didn’t call you Uncle Walt for nothing. These men and women served with courage, sacrificed their lives, endured the extremes both of climate and of separation, and through it all proved their diligence, toughness, and compassion for the plight of others. When the last of the troops returned home on March 18, 2014, I was privileged to be at CFB Trenton to greet them. That homecoming marked the end of more than a dozen years of our Canadian mission in Afghanistan – a mission with a certain aim, yet in an operational theatre that threw everything it had at our men and women in uniform. Afghanistan tested their heads, hearts, and guts. Our soldiers dug deep, putting all their training into practice and learning new tactical skills on the move – skills that will form the training of the generation of soldiers who are readying themselves now to meet the high standards that these veterans have set. They also bore witness to the suffering of a population under the tyranny of deliberate violence, enforced poverty, and perverse fanaticism. They saw the worst and the best of humanity, and while many of them brought home images that will haunt them, they carry also the memories of encounters that will inspire them for the rest of their lives.
Over the course of the Afghanistan mission, our men and women in uniform undertook many roles: as soldiers of course, but also as ambassadors, as peacekeepers, as protectors and rebuilders of civil society, and as teachers to Afghanistan’s own security force. Many talents, many roles: that versatility is a Canadian legacy and, I believe, one of the greatest assets our country had on the ground. The selfless service of those in the mission markedly improved the fortunes and futures of the Afghan people, whose dignity, opportunity, and very rights our men and women travelled so far to uphold. Through it all, these men and women put themselves at ultimate risk – 158 of them perished – standing their ground in defence of our beliefs and getting the job done so that those they came to help got that help. Their service is a love of country, comrades, and humanity made visible.
At the end of my first visit to Afghanistan, the senior U.S. military officer serving as liaison with our Canadian troops said to me, “I have two profound observations about Canadians in action. As professional soldiers they are second to none in the world, but they also have the ability to take off the armour and operate as civilian leaders – bringing order out of chaos, rebuilding schools and hospitals, reorganizing a destroyed village into a functioning community with an effective local government. I never thought I would see this from soldiers in a military theatre. For a long time I thought it was your unique training. But I’ve come to believe it is the voluntary notion of the Canadian military; those who choose to serve reflect the best of fundamental Canadian values.”
Joanna Baillie, a Scottish poet, nearly two centuries ago wrote, “Service is the rent we pay for our space on this earth.” Her statement remains just as true today. In its spirit, I’m safe in saying your bill and that of the men and women of Canada’s Afghanistan mission can be stamped “Paid in full.”
Thank you for your service,
David
Walter Natynczyk is deputy minister of Veterans Affairs Canada. He joined the Canadian Forces in 1975, beginning a professional life that saw him assume a variety of roles and took him around the world – most notably as a peacekeeper in Cyprus, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; commander of the Royal Canadian Dragoons; and deputy commanding general with U.S. III Corps in Iraq while a military exchange officer. He capped his thirty-seven-year career in the Canadian military when he was appointed Chief of the Defence Staff in 2008, serving in the post until 2012. He retired from the Canadian Army with the rank of general. He became president of the Canadian Space Agency before being appointed deputy minister of Veterans Affairs Canada. His life of service continues.