There’s no propaganda like military propaganda.
When it comes to propaganda, no other agency has as many taxpayer dollars to blown like the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.
Image control is what the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are all about.
Do you think that any of the thousands of “patriotic” Canadians lining up for a tour of these ships has any knowledge of the fact that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence are using taxpayer dollars to hide secrets from the Canadian public.
And I’m not talking about strategic secrets or operational secrets.
I’m talking of course the secrets revolving around how military dependents whom lived on the bases prior to 1998 for no other reason than the career choice of their parents are stripped of the same rights that other Canadians fully enjoy .
Whether its outright fuckups like the DND-419 fiasco, or the DND claiming that the Canadian Armed Forces were never responsible for the safety and security of military dependents, or the inability to lay charges for service offences that occurred prior to 1998, the DND and the CAF don’t care in the slightest.
The DND and the CAF have done such a great job of keeping the military’s dirty laundry out of the public eye and painting the military as this wholesome agency that would die to protect every Canadian’s child that it’s really easy for them to hide behind the ignorance of the public.
The DND and the CAF have lobbied so hard over the years to keep their private and separate justice system that even civilian lawyers a perplexed as to why these flaws were allowed to persist.
For instance, if a person who was in the regular forces in 1976 were to have sexually abused a military dependent in the recreation centre on base, who would have dealt with the charges at the time?
Well, if the military dependent was a 13 year old girl, this would be within the realm of the military justice system.
Why?
Members of the regular force are subject to the code of service discipline whether on-duty or off-duty, in uniform or not in uniform.
At the time the crime would have been considered “Sexual intercourse with female under the age of 14”.
This of course is not “Rape” as defined under the criminal code at the time. So this was well within the scope of the military justice system.
Next, unless the military police caught the offender in the act, it would be up to the commanding officer of the accused to decide if an investigation was warranted, and if an investigation was warranted then the commanding officer would have to determine the scope of the investigation.
Once the military police concluded their investigation, the results of the investigation would be handed over to the commanding officer of the accused for summary investigation.
It was the sole discretion of the commanding officer if the charges would proceed, if the charges were dismissed, or if other charges were substituted.
Now, remember how I said that as long as the charge wasn’t rape, the military could claim jurisdiction. That’s only for the tribunal.
The military couldn’t conduct a tribunal for rape. But the military sure could conduct the investigation, and the commanding officer could still dismiss the charges.
That doesn’t happen to kids who lived in the civilian world.
And no, crimes like these can’t be handled in the civilian justice system. You have to handle the charges as the law prescribed at the time of the offence.
And it’s all through the art of propaganda that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have been able to this shit hidden and out of the public eye.
I’ll admit that as a kid I was quite the flag waver.
Even back in the period of 1978 through 1983 I loved the Canadian Armed Forces and I loved being a base brat.
I joined cadets in the fall of 1984 with the full expectation that I would be going into the Canadian Forces when I was 18.
I was heartbroken when I applied to join in 1989 and 1991 and was turned down both times. (more on this later)
In my adult years I always went to Canada Day celebrations. I always wore a poppy for Remembrance day. When I worked for commercial property management I always ensured that the volunteer poppy sellers from the Legion always had a chair and a table to sit at and collect funds in the lobbies of the buildings that I oversaw.
Even in 2011 when I started dealing with this whole sickening matter, I actually took pride in the fact that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service were investigating this matter.
Of course, in the aftermath of the whole fiasco, I became violently ill realizing that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence not only hid and buried this whole mess back in 1980, but that they had suckered me in with their propaganda starting in my youth.
I had always thought that I was the problem. That CFB Namao was my fault. That I had indeed fucked with my father’s military career. That it was my fault that we had to move from Edmonton to Toronto.
Little did I realize that my life and my future mattered so little to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence that they were more than willing to chuck me under the train if it meant that they could keep their propagandized image of being the fearsome and noble defenders of Canada.
So yeah, I don’t do remembrance day, nor do I do Canada day.
Beeshive 