25 August 2011

"Historian of Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment wants them to know their past"

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jP9q0q7x59CJybEoXO3pViIg6eCQ

Quebecers, who generally don't get bowled over by the prospect of military history, are known as pacifists who are more stringent opponents of military conflict than Canadians in other parts of the country.

Yet the storied, Quebec-based Royal 22nd Regiment, the famed Van Doos, has never had much trouble over the years recruiting soldiers to fight for Canada in battles in France, Italy, Korea and other international hot spots, Lacombe acknowledges.

The Royal 22nd easily recruited 5,000 volunteers shortly after the regiment was founded in 1914, even though French-Canadians were generally opposed to conscription during the First World War, said Lacombe, the unofficial "biographer" of the regiment, recently arrived in Afghanistan.

No comments: