Ever since Sept 11 I've read quite a few posts on here by Americans stating that Britian has "always been there for us,stood beside us,etc,etc" and most don't even mention Canada's commitment. This post isn't meant as an attack on the Brits but what I hope is an eye opener for all those people who were so quick to wave the Union Jack.
As soon as I find it I will quote and or link a comment made by retired General Lewis Mackenzie regarding the US bombing of Canadian troops. It went along the lines of "the Americans are the best in the world when it comes to air to ground communications".
there..I'm climbing down of my soap box and going to look for his comment online.

British Media Laud Royal Troops
The Associated Press, Wed 17 Apr 2002

LONDON (AP) — As British troops secured a deserted cave complex in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the press back home was flushed with pride — as the newspapers saw it, the U.S. military wasn't up to the challenge and had been forced to call in the Brits to finish the task.

In the words of the ever-patriotic tabloid Sun, the U.S. troops ``did their best but the job needs finishing.''

``It's tough at the top as U.S. calls on our boys,'' said a headline in The Daily Express.

Britain may consider itself America's most loyal ally, but many Britons doubt that Americans are much good when it comes to the nasty reality of ground combat, no matter how many Hollywood epics they turn out. The critics also failed to mention World War II and the U.S.-led D-Day landings at the start of the Allied invasion of Europe.

Despite Prime Minister Tony Blair's repeated assertions that Britain and the United States stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the war on terrorism, the country's armchair generals are busy asserting British supremacy.

The Sun's military adviser, Maj. Gen. Ken Perkins, wrote Wednesday that ``the al-Qaida terrorists still lurking in their mountain caves have not yet come up against troops used to mountain warfare.''

The U.S. 10th Mountain Division, which has been heavily involved in fighting in Afghanistan, ``are mountain troops in name only,'' he said.

London's Evening Standard recounted with delight a reported comment from a soldier of the 10th Mountain Division — which, despite its name, is based in non-mountainous Fort Drum, N.Y. — to a journalist: ``We don't do mountains.''

``It's verging on the scandalous that the U.S. commanders in Florida saw fit to throw the 101st Airborne and the 10th Mountain Division into altitudes of 10,000 feet,'' Maj. Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, told The Associated Press.

``Operating in Arctic conditions is partly a state of mind. You need training and acclimatization.''

That, according to boosters of the British military, is where the Royal Marines come in. The members of 45 Commando Royal Marines sent to Afghanistan are mountain and Arctic warfare specialists who undergo rigorous training in freezing mountains. And they do it in Norway.

On Monday, some 300 Royal Marines launched an operation to flush out al-Qaida caves located 10,000-feet up a snowcapped mountain range in southeastern Afghanistan.

The mission — dubbed Operation Ptarmigan after a Scottish mountain bird — met with no resistance, though troops found ammunition, communications equipment and documents in the abandoned caves and bunkers.

The Ministry of Defense said it was a ``search and reconnaissance mission'' — but the British media was markedly more belligerent.

The Daily Telegraph said the Royal Marines had been sent in ``after two major American operations against al-Qaida bases failed to achieve their aims.''

U.S. forces, with Afghan and Canadian support, have conducted offensives at the Tora Bora cave complex and the Shah-e-Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan. In both cases, many al-Qaida fighters are believed to have escaped across the border to Pakistan.

The opposition will be no match for the British, according to the pundits.

``The troops heading for battle in Afghanistan today are the best-equipped fighting men in the history of modern warfare,'' the Evening Standard proclaimed.

Despite such tabloid claims, the British military has been dogged for years by poor funding, worn-out equipment and malfunctioning weapons.

The SA-80 rifles carried by the marines have been plagued by problems that stop them working, their artillery is older than some of the troops and what little high-tech gear they have tends to be American produced or designed.

Some military commanders complain that Blair's government has committed British forces to operations around the world while failing to provide sufficient funding and equipment.

Heyman, however, is cautiously confident.

``I think the Americans have had considerable success so far,'' he said. ``I hope the Royal Marines can build on that success.''
[url]http://www.europedaily.com/p/da/413e7bbd9fb4.html[/url]

From all the articles I've read Steyr..the Canadian soldiers from PPCLI hold no anger towards the pilot. They accepted the fact that some of them will die before they went over. It's an ugly fact of war.
2 of the soldiers who were killed, Pte Nathan Smith and Pte Richard Green were from my home province. Both from small communities that are understandably extremely shaken yet extremely proud of "their boys".
It also didn't take long for the "we shouldn't even be there..this isn't our fight" quotes to start appearing in local papers. People that say things like that make me want to puke. Of course I shouldn't expect any thing more from them. Obviously they are walking around through life with their head up their ass.[:(!]

What SteyrAug said.  My condolences, Striker.