Anyone who at all follows military blogging in Canada knows that the premier blog is “The Torch”, as in “to you with failing hands we throw.” But alas, the blog has shut down suddenly and unexpectedly. I contacted the authors, but they would prefer not to share the reasons publicly. Sufficed to say that this is a huge loss to the Canadian blogging community.
The blog owner, Damian Books, became the first Canadian blogger to be invited by the Canadian military to do embedded blogging in Afghanistan. His reports offered a rare and insightful look into Canada’s mission. Sadly, those reports are also now gone.
I hope this is only a hiatus. Such a loss to the Canadian blogging community will be deeply felt by all, and in particular those who support the mission in Afghanistan. There was no better source of information about Canada’s military out there, and that includes information directly from the government military web site.
[...] H/T to Adrian MacNair. [...]
This is terrible! I wish he’d at least left the blog up for reading past posts. I hope it is just a hiatus.
I’m not surprised, the Military is the most PC organization in Canada, thankfully hubby is retired and I no longer have to put up with their PC crap.
All he has to do is re-invent his blog with a big ole headline calling himself a human right’s blogger/activists leave the word military out of the name have a couple of links to so called anti-racist’s sites and voila you can blog without any of the brass being bothered?
This IS terrible. I hope it is merely a hiatus. We need their voices out there..
The shutdown had nothing to do with the Canadian military or government.
Mark
Ottawa
Mark,
You’re not answering my emails?
The Torch has been one of the few accurate sources of information regarding the Canadian military that I’ve found.
So many times, it’s exposed inaccuracies in the MSN; so many times it’s given in-depth treatment to important topics the MSN had merely skimmed over–its value to Canada has been priceless.
I greatly grieve its demise and hope that it will be back up and running in the near future.
If you can guys, please come back …
I hope the Torch writers are all in good health and are not affected by any personal, life-shattering crises that’s rendered them unable to continue sharing their labor of love with us.
Beyond that, I won’t speculate but I will be remembering the work of this fine blog, with an ache of regret in my heart.
It was one place I could go and read and feel proud to be Canadian.
If you can guys, please come back …
Joan,
Thanks for the very kind words.
Mark
Ottawa
What can we do to help bring this much needed blog back to life, even if it is under another title?
Mark, who writes on this blog, used to write with the Torch. Perhaps you can ask him.