Monday, January 28, 2008

One Bad Apple

This is no slur on Canadian soldiers. They're a good bunch and a lot better than the calibre of some we took in the 60s. But, just the same.

The National Spot has a story that indicates the Department of National Defence needs to keep a sharper eye on just who is signing up.

Private Stephen Cox had been at the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu for all of 10 days when the complaints began.

In handwritten statements to a Military Police corporal, a dozen platoon members said Pte. Cox had claimed to be the Son of Man and the Second Coming of Christ.


He said God had chosen him to cleanse the world of evil and that he was going to kill the Jews, Catholics, blacks, aboriginals, gays and lesbians, they wrote.

"I heard Private Cox talk of mass genocide of all humans who do not share his beliefs," one complaint read. Said another, "It was revealed to him that he was the second Christ and it was his duty to join the Canadian Army and get into JTF-2 [the special forces] so that he would be in place for the apocalypse in 2012."

It turns out that Private Cox was known to police as a pot trafficker and that he once boasted about killing a B.C. couple but he says he revealed all to recruiters in Vancouver. They don't quite see it that way.

The good part of this story is that Cox' fellow recruits did the right thing in promptly informing their superiors about him. It wasn't just one or two but a dozen of his platoon mates acted and that's very good to know. Still, Peter MacKay and Rick Hillier need to make sure people like Cox don't get through the front door.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blame Messrs. MacKay and Hiller when some lunatic makes it through recruitment.
They should personally interview and vet everyone, they have nothing better to do.
The fact other recruits noticed and acted is more important than placing blame.

The Mound of Sound said...

C1955, I'm going to take a wild-assed guess here and assume you are capable of reading. No one, save you, suggests MacKay and Hillier personally interview everyone and how you got that in your brain is just plain odd. If you could read down to the bottom of this item you'll see that I fully credited the other recruits for coming forward.