Posted on 07/18/2006 1:47:01 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured the First World War battlefield at Vimy Ridge on Tuesday where he quipped that the enemy now carries news cameras, not guns.
Harper made the comment during a photo-opportunity at a front line Canadian trench, just metres from the opposing German line. "These were sand, not cement," Harper said of the reconstructed sandbags.
"And the enemies carried guns, not (a) camera," he added, looking directly over the lip of the old trench at a small clutch of Canadian TV and still cameras.
It was his first tour of the First World War battlefield in France where some have said the modern Canadian nation was born.
Harper's tour of the deeply moving site marks the closing leg of his week-long diplomatic mission.
Troops from all four Canadian divisions fought together for the first time at Vimy, and scored the first decisive Allied victory of the war there in 1917.
The Vimy Memorial, which took more than a decade to build, is currently in the midst of a major restoration, exactly 70 years after its dedication in July 1936. It's official re-dedication will take place next April.
Harper and his wife, Laureen, also stopped at a military graveyard in the village of Barlin, where Laureen cried over the headstone of her great uncle, James Edward Teskey of Okotoks, Alta.. He died at age 19 in the battle of Arras in June, 1917.
The prime minister's wife also took a charcoal rubbing of the inscription on Teskey's stone.
Harper is spending two days in France en route home from Russia, where he participated in the G8 conference over the weekend.
Harper was scheduled to meet with French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin later Tuesday when he was expected to get a first-hand account of de Villepin's whirlwind visit Monday to war-torn Lebanon.
.....and c-4 vests
My great-uncle was killed in France during WWI too. He was only 25. He's buried at Terlincthun British Cemetery at Wimille, Pas de Calais.
My great-uncle was also killed in France during World War I, on the last day of the war to be precise, apparently during one of the last American assaults on the German lines before the Armistice went into effect. He left behind an 18 year old widow, who was my grandma's sister.
I thought it was a dig at the traitorous western media, but it sounds like he was just referring to the people he happened to be looking at over the edge of the trench.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.