Canada Just about the coolest thing I've read in a long time...

An excerpt from today's (June 26) National Post:

"By the side of the sand-scoured runway in Kandahar, Afghanistan, a band of Canadian infantrymen and engineers has begun work on a distinctly Canadian monument to fallen coalition soldiers in Afghanistan.
The men are assembling an inukshuk: an Inuit stone cairn of scrub black slate scavenged from around the military base. The monument will honour all of the coalition soldiers who have died in the conflict, but for the men gathered yesterday, patting cement into place between the sculpture's stone slabs, the monument and its northern Canadian inspiration carry extra meaning.
It will honour Corporal Ainsworth Dyer, 25, Private Richard Greene, 22, Sergeant Marc Leger, 29, and Private Nathan Smith, 27, the four members of the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry who were killed in April when a U.S. jet pilot mistook them for enemy troops and dropped a 250-kilogram bomb on a training exercise just outside this base."
...
"The soldiers salvaged some of the smaller slate slabs from underneath one of the airport buildings. They found the bigger pieces in a stone pile at a nearby farm.
They had little difficulty persuading the Afghan locals to give them a few slabs, said Master Cpl. Bibby.
'The elder there, once he heard what we needed the stones for, he said, "Take whatever you need."'"
...
"And not long ago, Sergeant Ron Hinkey of the PPCLI flew on a special mission to Dubai: to find three polished granite slabs.
One of the slabs will be a memorial to all the coalition soldiers lost in Afghanistan - one Briton, one Australian, four Canadians and 40 Americans, according to the U.S. Central Command.
A second plaque will remember the Canadians lost here, Sgt. Hinkey said.
And the third plaque will explain the origins of the inukshuk.
It will read in part: 'Certain Inukshuk had spiritual connotations, and were objects of veneration, often marking the threshold of the spiritual landscape, or in other words, sacred ground'."

One of the most touching things I think I've heard in a long time.

 

That's good that they're doing that. I never would have expected a quality article from the National Post. Isn't it just Chretien's propaganda paper now?

They're also building a monument for the Canadians at Juno. Better late than never.

 

Wow. that is rather touching.

 

An excellent idea! Nice done