STANDING ON THE LINE: ALL TIGERS NO DONKEYS
Written: Mar 15 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well written
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: An excellent first hand account.
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| JAMES23's Full Review: kurt grant - All Tigers, No Donkeys: A Citizen Sol... |
Canadian has this rather odd concept of its national military tradition. First there is this popular misconception that the sole purpose of the Canadian military is to run around the world on peacekeeping missions, spreading good will while handing out blankets, teddy bears and warm hugs.
When not doing this we’re either saving earthquake and/or flood victims in the far flung reaches of the world and at home or digging the citizens of our largest city out after a snow storm.
While it’s true the men and woman of the Canadian Forces have done these things and are rightly proud of them, it is not their raison d’etre.
The other popular conception is that we are not a military nation. What we are is a peaceful people that only when forced to arm our selves’ briefly and then as quickly as possible return to our regular mundane lives.
This given rise to the militia myth of the War of 1812, which suggests that good Canadian farm boys briefly put down their ploughs and grabbed their muskets to repel the Yankee invaders with just a little help from the British regulars.
A couple of generations later the descendents of those young men would cross the Atlantic not once but twice briefly donning uniforms to show the European professionals how battles were supposed to be won at such places as Vimy, Passchendale, Ortona, Normandy and the Scheldt. Once finished with helping to restore freedom to the old worlds they returned home, took their uniforms off, and got on with their lives.
This history of ready amateurs willing to serve if needed carried on into the later half of the twentieth century. The small professional Canadian Army found itself overtaxed with numerous peacekeeping missions mainly in the war torn former Yugoslavia. To bolster their numbers more than a few times part time Reservists volunteered for tours overseas as individual augmentees and later as formed units.
One such reservist who volunteered was Kurt Grant of Brockville Ontario. Like many soldiers before him he started a journal o record his experiences. Fortunately unlike many others who gave up on this personal project, Grant persevered. His journal was eventually turned into a book and published. Grant states he wrote his journal and turned it into a book to allow his children and family an opportunity to understand what he experienced. In All Tigers No Donkeys he succeeded.
The book breaks down Grants tour in Croatia in 1994-95 into three distinct parts which former peacekeepers and soldiers in general will be most familiar with.
The first phase is his decision to go and then the pre deployment work up training with the First Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment in Petawawa. The training is mundane and perhaps even boring but an essential part of the procedure.
Added to the regular training are Grant’s own personal issues to deal with. Canadian reservists unlike those of some other nations do not have any job protection legislation, so quitting his job with the understanding that it will not be waiting for him again in a years time is not a matter to be dealt with lightly.
Grant is not the typical reservist volunteering for a tour. Most of them are in their early twenties and have yet to establish themselves with careers and/or families. For them this will be a grand adventure before settling down to a regular life, the uniformed equivalent of backpacking through Europe and or Asia. Grant is in his mid thirties with a wife and family, a career, a mortgage and all those other trappings of society. The tour is important to him though and he has a supporting family.
One aspect of the work up training phase that becomes apparent in the book is the animosity between the Regulars and the small contingent of Reservists bringing the unit up to its established strength. May of the Regulars resent the Reservists and look down at them as not up to their standards in the profession of arms. Unfortunately in more than one instance this is actually the case as Grant points out.
The Reservists are often reduced to second class citizens and more often that not if there is a lousy job or task to undertake then it is a Reservist who gets to do it. Grant provides more than one example of this petty behaviour and his thoughts on this long standing issue in the Canadian Army.
The second section of the book and the longest is the actual deployment to Croatia. Once here the Battalion quickly moves into the routine of establishing a presence between the warring Serbian and Croatian factions and trying to maintain the tenacious ceasefire.
It’s six or more months of routine patrols and long hours in observation posts recording infractions on each side and dealing with the belligerents and those caught in the middle. For some it’s new experience, although the novelty quickly wears off and they soon develop the cynical outlook of the veterans many on their second or even third UN mission.
The days and nights are long and when not engaged in patrols or manning Ops there is still much to do. Long hours are spent trying to keep the ancient and overworked vehicles in running order. Some of the other essential equipment is in equally bad condition.
On top of all this is the incessant orders from on high most of which to the troops on the ground make little sense and are carried out reluctantly. The former rift between the Regulars and Reservists for the most part disappears, partially because the former see that the latter are capable of pulling their weight and therefore deserving of respect. Mostly among the lower ranks it’s replace by a united front against the steady stream of asinine directives from Battalion HQ, Higher UN command and/or from Canada.
Grant pulls no punches with his accounts of this including the unenforceable rules regarding the consumption of alcohol and the double standards that existed. He has changed the names of those he describes throughout the book, but those who served in this tour have no problem knowing whom he is talking about.
The monotony of daily routine and absurd directives is occasionally broken by actions as either the Serbians and/or Croatians or both engage in acts that break the ceasefire and force the Canadians to react. Perhaps the most significant incident is the ambush of two Canadians on News Year Eve 1994 that leaves them seriously wounded after there vehicle is shot up at a roadblock.
Grant also describes the off duty time as well either the unit smokers and other activities and the occasional weekend leave in neighbouring Hungary. It’s an almost a surreal experience as the leave bound Canadians troops aboard a bus with their helmets body armour and weapons and have to pass through first the Serbian lines, then no man land, and then the Croatian positions to get to the UN Logistics base where they can depart for their leave. On their return they are forced to repeat this process.
Grant’s wife is a major concern in his account of his tour. Just prior to deploying overseas they learned that she had been diagnosed with Multiple Scoliosis. He was then forced to make the painful decision to go or stay behind with her. Her support in his decision to continue on and is description of her strength and their relationships are some of the most poignant passages in the book
As I noted Grant was much older than most of the Reservists of his tour and in fact one of the oldest members of his company. For this he received some good-natured ribbing from his youthful compatriots, however it is evident his relative maturity was a benefit. This maturity also comes through in his writing, particularly in his observations of the events unfolding.
Grant is not a professional writer and makes no such claims. However his journal entries are clear concise and direct and convey to the reader a realistic account of what a UN peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia was like. There is also a sprinkling of the dark humour that most professional soldiers will recognize.
All Tigers No Donkeys is one of the few books to come out of the Canadian involvement in the Balkans, a conflict that lasted over a decade. For that reason alone it’s an important work. However it is also an excellent personal account of modern soldiering and for that reason also is highly recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
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