04/25/2009 — Canadian soldiers storm a beach in Mayport, Fla., April 25, 2009, during an amphibious assault demonstration. The service members are participating in the 50th annual multinational exercise UNITAS Gold, which involves participation from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and the United States. The two-week long exercise includes realistic scenario-driven training opportunities such as live-fire exercises, shipboard operations, maritime interdiction operations and special warfare. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Alan Gragg, U.S. Navy/Released)
Courtesy my friend John Donovan, who writes: [Dammit!] We demand the immediate withdrawal of your forces!
–John Noonan
Damn it Canada, I asked you to invite us if you invaded the US, how rude.
Yeah, I’m sure it took some real arm twisting to convince that crew to invade a pristine Florida beach.
PHOTOSHOP ALERT!
everybody knows Canada doesn’t have a military.
lol
I live in Canada and the first thing I thought was, “wait, we have amphibious capability?”
As much crap as we give our funny neighbors to the north, there’s no other country that will stick by us through thick and thin when our other “allies” (hello Brits) weasel on out.
Geez, I wouldn’t want to be in flordia in full combat gear.… too hot.
“I live in Canada and the first thing I thought was, “wait, we have amphibious capability?”“
YA! +1!
About weaseling out.…
To be honest, the current government only represents 30% of the voting population.… if things were a little different Canada would probably be out of Afghanistan.
Canada withdraw completely from Florida?
You realize that would ruin that state’s economy, right?
Well, from November to March, at least…
Tell you what: You be nice and send up some Krispy Kremes, and we’ll trade you for some Tim Horton’s.
Do it. Don’t force us to hit you with Celine Dion again.
Nobody wants that.
re: Nick — i hardly feel you can accuse us brits of weaseling on you considering our ever-present status on the front lines in afghanistan and iraq (the latter until recently) — we may have got some things wrong in basra, but that is the nature of conflict, and the usa doesn’t have a perfect record either — both militaries learn and evolve, which is what makes them powerful. our increased commitment to combat power in afghanistan keeps us clearly the second largest contributor in theatre, at a time when we as a country are seriously buggered, and our military could ideally do with a few non-active years to reset and recover. (for the record i opposed our involvement in iraq, we should have concentrated purely on ‘stan from the start). i also note and respect the fighting commitment of the canadian, dutch and australian troops, who along with the usa and uk put their lives (and lose them) on the front lines every day. the real shame is the lack of nato war-fighting commitment from the larger eu nations such as france and germany. i guess one could argue if the citizens of these countries oppose something so strongly, in a democracy that is how it works, and that is what we are (supposedly) fighting to preserve after all, isn’t it?
Brits=weasals NOT
who is the largest contributor at the minute, beside the U.S. Britain!!!
WHo gave the most troops beside the u.s. to the initial invasions Britain!!!
After all the horror & public statements of support died down who remained, loyal to the u.s. Britain.
This all happened during most of this decade.
Maybe you should appreciate, your friends more and not be, so negative. We’re pulling the bulk of our forces out of Iraq, and sending thousands more to afganistan, where there needed.
wrong camo
@ExurbanKevin
I would invade Canada for some Tim Hortons. I wish we could swap all the F@CKING Starbucks for just 1 Tim hortons in NZ.
@ExurbanKevin
Surely you know the US policy regarding WMDs?
If you use Celine Dion, we will be forced to retaliate!
Of course, I understand that Creed is getting back together, so maybe we could use that instead of nukes…
if we start playing celine dion and creed the taliban are going to get a lot of new recruits just on the whole no-music thing… I wonder how I’d look with a beard…
We have no better friend that the UK…who else could have withstood the best Hitler could throw at them and still keep a stiff upper lip!
Cheers mates, love you guys across the pond! Remember the Dunkirk spirit!
These Canadians are perfectly lined up for a machine gun turkey shoot.
Where did they learn this brilliant formation?
The Canadians should stay in Canada. That way they won’t get mowed down like field mice beneath a mower when they get someplace where people shoot.
What a pathetic display.
I bet that if an old retired guy living nearby had set off a single fire cracker, these big bad Canadians would have been swimming back to their boat as fast as they could.
I always love the thoughtful, intelligent and enlightening remarks on defensetech, to say nothing of the superior commentary by the editors.
I am CANDIAN, yes we have basically no military but what we do have is great dedication and pride.
U can count on CA to have your back in thik and thin so watch who u bash, enough enemies out there no reason to bash allies.
And yeah I agree about the camo issue frig it goes on and on and on we starting in afgan with green go figure.
US and CA are good friends so why bash your peaceful neighboure casue if it wasent this way there is no way your resources could be used as they are thats one big ass border you’d have to defend.
” Although only one Canadian unit reached its D-Day objective, the first line of German defences had been completely smashed. By evening, Canadian troops had progressed further inland than any of their Allies.“
*Sigh*.…so sad that people have forgetten what our Canadian friends sacraficed to help liberate Europe along side US trops.
I wonder if the better position is to be prone:
http://www.nationalsalute.com/images/performers/2007/amphibious_assault_01.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/miami/1/0/U/4/amphibious_assault_02.jpg
Maybe these guys didn’t want their cammies to be soiled.
“I am CANDIAN“
–Does that mean you’re from the land of John Candy?
Please do not judge a military by its politicians. I don’t know of one national military that funds itself. No bucks no Buck Rogers.
Canada is doing a great job in A-stan. American special forces have complimented them on their bravery and small unit tactics, which are the key to the fight there. Canadian spec ops troops Joint Task Force II are fighting along side Delta and Seal teams.
Also, I far as I know a Canadian sniper has the longest confirmed kill in A-stan actually taking out a machine gun postion that was pinning down US troops. 2300 meter shot!
Americans, Canadians, British … we were all once part of the same family. And to be honest, we sort of still are to some degree.
Though I would have to say Australia > Canada.
But, any one of those would be close and trusted allies.
Americans, Canadians, British … we were all once part of the same family. And to be honest, we sort of still are to some degree.
Though I would have to say Australia > Canada.
But, any one of those would be close and trusted allies.
And if the Creed doesn’t work, I’ve no doubt that we could very easily scare up some Pat Boone or Carpenters recordings.
You Canucks are doomed. Nobody beats America in the battle of cheesy, over-sentimental sugar-pop!
These dorks should stay in Canada, and do what they do best.
Shoot at fish, and trap seals.
End of story.
Dude, I think its awesome we got some of are allies 2 train with us. The Brits and Canucks, and to a lesser extent the Aussies and Kiwies are probaly the best allies we got, to bad Obama’s gonna blow all that to h**l.
damn, now if they make it to the Ohio river DoD just might try to get my fat dime a dozen tanker has-been butt back in harness…
@Jarhead
As a Kiwi, don’t worry about us and Obama. We like him better than Bush, and we helped under Bush. So we wont be backing out now.
Having said that, we are now under a Right-wing governement that was AGAINST helping when this whole thing started(they were in the opposition benches) and they seem to be trying to weasel-out now they are Government. We were under a Centre-Left Government when this whole thing started and they wanted to help.
We Kiwis are a weird bunch. Our Labour party(centre-left) agrees with spreading Democracy, and National(Right-wing) don’t because they don’t like how much it costs.
Awesome… the invasion has begun! Bet ya never saw that coming! Just wait for the Northern Front… attack beavers and moose cavalry. lol.
“wait, we have amphibious capability?”-
No, Canada does not have an amphibious capability. Our soldiers train to be able to perform amphibious assaults but the government has not yet ponied up the dough to get us the ships. There is a project in the works, originally due for 2010 but there were issues with the cost and it was put on a back burner, the Joint Support Ship, that would be able to carry a company and a half of light infantry, but the ships are multi-role, and mainly intended for supplying other ships at sea. Some purpose-built amphibious assault ships are also a part of a $30+ billion navy modernization project, but they are by no means at the top of the wish list and the Canadian government is very stingy with military spending. There was talk a few years ago about establishing a maritime special operations unit at esquimalt; I don’t know what happened to that, but I think the concept was assimilated into CSOR (canadian special operations regiment).
It’s nice to be able to train with allies because we don’t have much equipment, and what we do have is deployed overseas and VERY busy. Thanks guys, come north sometime… stronger beer and therefore, the women appear prettier.
re: Ed — do you mean the dieppe (not calais) raid of 1942? some interweb sourced facts ..:
“The Dieppe Raid of August 19, 1942 was one of the worst disasters of the Second World War. Nine-hundred-and-seven Canadian lives were lost on that day and 1,946 other Canadians were captured and forced to spend the remainder of the war as prisoners. The troops involved totalled 6,100 of whom roughly 5,000 were Canadians, the remainder being British Commandos and 50 American Rangers. The raid was supported by eight Allied destroyers and 74 Allied air squadrons (eight belonging to the Royal Canadian Air Force).“
what this fails to say, though, is that the failure was a major wake-up for the Allies idea for D-Day and it informed many of the later correct decisions (mass air support, ship bombardment, artificial harbours, the scale of the thing). There’s a very convincing argument that without dieppe, normandy would have failed. so thanks again canada
oh and having just returned form a brief visit to vancouver, what a nice city and country you have, and yes the beer was good!
The C7A1s you guys had were sexier than these new C7A2s.