Hillier

On the eve of his retirement announcement over beer Monday night, Gen. Hillier nicely framed his military legacy in a single sentence: “We’re one of the big boys now.”

With air, ground and naval equipment upgrades on order or delivered to bolster an extended Afghanistan mission fortified with 1,000 fresh American troops, Gen. Hillier has put the force back into the military. national post

Hillier was and is a strategist. He leaves without the war in Afghanistan won but with the means in hand to win it.

He walked close to the line which divides the military from its civilian masters but he was surefooted enough to win those battles.

He took the Stanley Cup to the ‘Stan and the fight to the Taliban.

I hope his audacity, vision and intelligence are not lost to Canadians. We have a lot of work to do; Hillier is a man who has demonstrated he is a dog for work and a leader without rival in the Canadian government. He is certainly entitled to the potential corporate rewards his service has earned; but if Harper has the brains God gave a goat he will find General Hillier a place where he can continue to serve Canada.

Written by jay on April 16th, 2008 with 4 comments.
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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com junior
#1. April 16th, 2008, at 9:58 PM.

Nice summary of a truly larger than life Military leader - and when was the last time we could honestly say that of the Canadian Forces? General Hillier had the vision to move a calcified organisation - to transform it for the future. One might argue that he may have bit off more than he could chew with CF transformation, to whit the dotcoms - CEFCOM, CANOSCOM, CANADACOM etc didn’t have an easy birth and the timing may be considered a risk while the Army was at war - true legacy of the dotcoms won’t be known for a while yet.

However, needs must - CF needed a shakeup and he was the man to do it. BZ to General Hillier, the first General Officer in a long time to earn his soldier’s loyalty.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Peter
#2. April 16th, 2008, at 10:46 PM.

After the dreadful and humiliating Chretien years from 2001-05, I had all but given up on the country and was in a deeply cynical despair. My road back to national pride began the morning of July 15th, 2005 when I opened my Globe and Mail and read this:

“Canada’s elite JTF2 soldiers are heading to Afghanistan as part of a 2,000-troop deployment that will target the “detestable murderers and scumbags” behind the rise in international terrorism, General Rick Hillier said yesterday.

In a blunt briefing that signalled a new aggressiveness at the top of the Canadian Forces, the Chief of the Defence Staff said the impending operations are risky but necessary in light of last week’s bombings in the British public-transit system.[…]

It was the first time Gen. Hillier has confirmed that members of the Joint Task Force 2 — the country’s secretive commando team — will be involved in combat missions against the remnants of the former Taliban regime and supporters of al-Qaeda.

“These are detestable murderers and scumbags, I’ll tell you that right up front. They detest our freedoms, they detest our society, they detest our liberties,” Gen. Hillier said.

He stressed the new face of the Canadian Forces, which he said are now focused on the first job at hand: protecting Canadian interests at home and abroad.

“We’re not the public service of Canada, we’re not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people.”

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com KevinG
#3. April 17th, 2008, at 5:45 AM.

I assume your praise is for General Hillier not General Hiller.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com jay
#4. April 17th, 2008, at 5:49 AM.

You assumed right Kevin. Fixed now.

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