Good thing I'm off on vacation very soon.

Sounds like you need one. Me too.

As Tony points out, I was born and raised in Canada. I'm proud of the service both my parents gave the country--and the world--in the second world war. The continually deteriorating state of the Canadian military saddens me greatly.

True, Canadians are, as Granatstein* said, "an unmilitary people," but as such they have a stunningly magnificent record up to the 1980s or so.

Anyway, if I were you I wouldn't worry about the badmouthing or putdowns that come from an ex-Canadian nobody in Illinois...I'd worry about the very same thing coming from within the government of Canada, in the form of a calculated, decades-long degradation of the nation's abilities (only partly mitigated by the Mulroney govt, imho).

Just an opinion.

Have a great vacation, I hope you can forgive my irresponsible comments.

* I beleive it was Jack Granatstein who coined the phrase, but I could be wrong.