Bin, Matthew. (2007) On Guard for Thee: Canadian Peacekeeping Missions.

Toronto: Bookland Press

“The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants,

and for peace like retarded pygmies”

Lester B. Pearson

As I celebrated my 50th birthday, I was handed a stack of books by Canadian authors by my mother who is a member of the Canadian Authors Association (CAA). One book stood out, as I am currently deeply contemplating the meaning of peace and the right to claims by Canadians that Canada is a peaceful nation. Matthew Bin (2007), a former soldier who subsequently earned a BA and MA in English and became president of the CAA Waterloo-Wellington Branch, has collected personal accounts from Canadian veterans who served in Canadian peacekeeping missions to get a sense of “the reality of peacekeeping as the soldiers saw it” (p. 7). While Bin attempts to create a picture, through their stories, of  a less ‘sentimental’  version of peacekeeping than Canadians have versus the reality of soldiers’ experiences in-theatre, he also unwittingly created a text in which it becomes clear that not all actions are in fact peacekeeping missions. It is also, upon reflection, a series of stories that show less compassion for the afflicted citizens in war zones than sympathy for the Canadian soldiers themselves. The latter is foreshadowed in the introduction (p. 9):

It’s easy to imagine the square-jawed Canadian soldier, in a blue helmet, standing on guard for us. It’s a little more difficult to imagine the garbage and sewage, the angry mobs, the landmines and machine guns and tripwires, the people hacked and shot and murdered before their eyes. It’s hard to know what they go through without asking them.

As a study about the soldiers’ personal feelings it is clear the soldiers are deeply affected. But from the beginning to the end of the book, the introverted discussion is entirely on the soldiers themselves and gives short shrift to the people in the countries whom they purport to be...