The soldier behind the gun; Reporter profiles Canadian Forces troops serving in Afghanistan
Posted By Ian Elliot
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Christie Blatchford is an unabashed champion of the Canadian Forces serving in Afghanistan, and wants the rest of the country to know where they are and what they have been tasked with doing.
Blatchford was in Kingston yesterday to meet with Royal Military College cadets and give a talk about her new book, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death From Inside The New Canadian Army.
The title refers to the 15 significant days from her initial three tours as an embedded journalist for the Globe and Mail when significant events happened. They were usually the deaths of soldiers she had come to know in attacks. Those days, and their aftermath, make up the structure of her book.
The subtitle refers to the change, perhaps not in the military itself but in the public perception of it, as it engages in the first actual fighting war in more than a generation.
"I became the unofficial publicist for the army within five minutes of me being there for my first tour," Blatchford said in an interview at the college yesterday.
An unabashed supporter and friend of the young men and women she covered, Blatchford's book steers clear of the politics or the strategies of the Afghan mission, instead presenting a corporal's-eye view of life on the ground in a foreign and often hostile land.
Among the soldiers she profiles is Capt. Nicola Goddard, an RMC grad who was well-known around Kingston. Goddard was killed in Afghanistan last May and is described as a "smart, switched-on, charismatic young woman."
While undeniably sympathetic to the men and woman in uniform who surround her, Blatchford, who returns next
More on link
Posted By Ian Elliot
Article Link
Christie Blatchford is an unabashed champion of the Canadian Forces serving in Afghanistan, and wants the rest of the country to know where they are and what they have been tasked with doing.
Blatchford was in Kingston yesterday to meet with Royal Military College cadets and give a talk about her new book, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death From Inside The New Canadian Army.
The title refers to the 15 significant days from her initial three tours as an embedded journalist for the Globe and Mail when significant events happened. They were usually the deaths of soldiers she had come to know in attacks. Those days, and their aftermath, make up the structure of her book.
The subtitle refers to the change, perhaps not in the military itself but in the public perception of it, as it engages in the first actual fighting war in more than a generation.
"I became the unofficial publicist for the army within five minutes of me being there for my first tour," Blatchford said in an interview at the college yesterday.
An unabashed supporter and friend of the young men and women she covered, Blatchford's book steers clear of the politics or the strategies of the Afghan mission, instead presenting a corporal's-eye view of life on the ground in a foreign and often hostile land.
Among the soldiers she profiles is Capt. Nicola Goddard, an RMC grad who was well-known around Kingston. Goddard was killed in Afghanistan last May and is described as a "smart, switched-on, charismatic young woman."
While undeniably sympathetic to the men and woman in uniform who surround her, Blatchford, who returns next
More on link
