The difficulties of historical research are seldom appreciated. If we look at the probelm of quantifing a small detail of the recent past we should begin to understand the difficulties.Every one knows that there were some Canadians in Vietnam, here and here, in same way there were some Americans in Canadian units in the world wars. To get from that general statement/assumption to an actual number things get a little muddy. The military organizations engage in rigorous screening when recruiting to a peace time military. In wartime standards that were imposed for paradeground esthetics get tossed, guard units on parade ride identical mounts for appearance, in wartime any horse can be acceptable as remount or stewpot. Here is a study of estimates of the actual number of Canadians in Vietnam.
The two links and the picture are from Vets With a Mission are used without permission.
For some more discussion on the art of history is this essay, Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, about Wikipedia's spreading influence. It was posted on World History Blog which is now listed as an "interesting" blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment