From: ab.chaplin@rogers.com   
      
   On Tuesday, January 5, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Andrew Chaplin wrote:   
   > In article <369223DC.94825614@istar.ca>,   
   >   Carter Lee  wrote:   
   > > Tony Chevalier wrote:   
   > > >   
   > > > Don't worry about BGen Cox, he got posted to Europe last summer.   
   > >   
   > > .....but does he have access to a computer?   
   > >   
   > By J-j-jimminey, I hope so. I would hate to think we were spilling all these   
   > electrons and he wasn't reading the results.   
   >    
   > A lot of what I read here I file along with the sort of 'anti-bravado' I used   
   > to hear from soldiers in Germany, e.g.: 'There'll be two soldiers missing   
   > from the next war - me, and the MP chasing me!' The soldiers who said this -   
   > in the canteen, of course, and usually after a depressing Int briefing - were   
   > often keen and a little too intelligent for their own good. I still believe   
   > they would have been there when they were needed.   
   >    
   > It does an officer good - even a general - to sit in the back of the canteen   
   > and listen, or in this case, read. It goes without saying that any action   
   > taken as a result of what is written should be carefully considered, given   
   > that mutterings such as these have gone on for millenia, yet discipline has   
   > been maintained. Access to opinion such as is found on this news group in   
   > 1918-9 might have helped the staff foresee or even forestall the riots of   
   > Canadian troops in Wales. Such access would certainly have saved the RCN from   
   > the embarassment of having HMCS Uganda '[vote] itself out of the war' as it   
   > did in the summer of 1945. Frankly, if you cannot make a case for libel or   
   > sedition that a Crown Prosecutor would take to court, just 'Watch and Shoot'   
   > - and learn. (Yes, I know this is counter-factual, but it is somewhat   
   > plausible.)   
   >    
   > I have followed the discussions here for over a year, and while tone is   
   > disappointing and wit severely wanting on occasion, the essence is little   
   > different than that I hear about the stand-up tables in the mess. That may   
   > differ from what generals hear in the mess, but they tend not to stay late   
   > enough and the subalterns seem too wary these days to 'beak off' to a degree   
   > that might be salutory.   
      
   To follow-up some 19 years later... Jim Cox and I worked together off and on   
   between 2007 and 2011; he was a researcher at the Library of Parliament   
   working on his Ph.D., and I was a committee clerk at the House of Commons. He   
   was--and I suspect remains--   
   a capital chap with a good senses of humour and proportion. E.g.: when he took   
   his retirement it was close to Easter, so I bought him a little chocolate   
   chicken as a departure gift. He roared with laughter. When we travelled to   
   Afghanistan we were kitted    
   with PPE in Camp Mirage. We were asked to put our family names on gun tape and   
   to apply it to the breast of our body armour. I was the guy with the Sharpie   
   and fairly neat printing, so I did them all. Jim was the last, and when I saw   
   the "O" in "COX" in    
   the middle of his breast, I put a dot in it to turn it into a miniature   
   target. Again, Jim laughed.   
      
   Jim might have been hard-arsed as a CO, but that is often necessary. I am sure   
   he was as hard on himself as he was on his subordinates. As for his reaction   
   as a general to what he read online, I stand by my remarks about it.   
      
   Cheers after all these years, and still from Ottawa.   
   --   
   Andrew Chaplin   
   SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)