We Can Lead In The World

Beryl Wajsman: General Leslie, what is the purpose of your current tour of Canada? Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie: Having just left Europe and Afghanistan, I’m trying to explain to Canadians, our allies and stakeholders what our army is doing. BW: Why don’t more Canadians know of the great success of the Canadian mission? Is there an almost “Canadian reticence” in celebrating victory as Andrew Cohen has written or is it just my misapprehension? AL: I think there may be a little bit of misapprehension. I would submit that Canadians are more aware of what their army is doing than at any time since the Second World War and Korea. Wherever I go the sense of Canadians’ pride in their young men and women in uniform doing such extraordinary things overseas has never been stronger. There is momentum building. BW: Would you like to see the public relations effort strengthened at any level or are you satisfied that the message is getting across? AL: It depends on your point of view. As the army commander I’m certainly free to talk about what the army is doing as are all our soldiers, 40,000 of them between regulars and reserves. The single best spokespersons we have are the young men and women who have just returned from overseas missions. And it’s not only Afghanistan. That’s our main focus. The ones actually carrying rifles, helping in reconstruction, helping develop governance, protecting the good folk at CIDA, assisting the diplomatic staff. Those are the true spokespersons. And they’re out there talking to their peers as to the good results. And I think we’re seeing feedback in terms of increased enrollment numbers. Young Canadians are saying “I want to do some of that.” To be part of something bigger than themselves often protecting the weak and the innocent. Young people are saying “I want to join.” BW: People who have been in Afghanistan, either military or civil, demonstrate an extraordinary commitment. Khorshied Samad called it a pull that is almost humbling. Did you find that? What is it about that country? AL: Oh yeah! It’s a magical land populated by tough people who have gone through more tragedies than we can imagine. But the progress since 2003 when I was there for quite a long time has been extraordinary. When I was there, there were less than 600-700,000 young boys going to school. Right now the numbers are over 6,000,000. There were only 15- 20,000 young ladies in schools — and they all had to be protected by NATO soldiers. Now the number of young ladies having a chance to get an education to better their lives is well into 2-3,000,000. More: http://thesuburban.com/content.jsp?sid=12858350015622800961093195384&ctid=1000000&cnid=1012154

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