Acknowledgements

This book would not exist if not for the friendship and generosity of three of Canada’s pre-eminent scholars, beginning with Dr. David J. Bercuson, who, one day over lunch, offered me the opportunity to pursue a PhD with him at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. Although I thought I knew a lot about the news media after twenty-five years as a journalist, my co-supervisor Dr. David Taras led me to think about journalism in ways I never had before. His wisdom, guidance, and unfailing support have been invaluable. Dr. John Ferris was instrumental in bringing this study to the manuscript submission stage. Brian Scrivener, Director of the University of Calgary Press, is right: a book truly is a team effort.

I am indebted to the Canadian Armed Forces—from the corporals to the generals—for all its help. The assistance of Col. W.R.R. Cleland, Commander of 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta, was crucial to this study. Without Col. Cleland’s permission to interview his servicemen and women, I would not have received the ethical approval necessary to conduct research involving human subjects. Col. André Viens, Commander of 3 Wing Bagotville, Quebec, made another major component of the research possible by similarly allowing me to interview his personnel there. Cols. Cleland and Viens want Canadians to know what their men and women did during the Kosovo war. Also generous with their time and assistance were Maj. Luc Gaudet and the late Eric Cameron of the National Defence Public Affairs Office, Calgary (Prairie Region & Northern Area). They provided me with numerous records and introductions that, at one point, took me to the highest-ranking officer in the Canadian Forces, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Ray Henault, who was also gracious with his time. Many of the original Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces documents that fleshed out the bare bones of my ideas about the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo air war were obtained using the federal Access to Information Act. I must thank the Department’s Director of Access to Information and Privacy, the staff, and the Canadian Forces and National Defence personnel for their responses to my many requests.

Some of Canada’s most prominent journalists went far out of their way to share their experiences in Aviano, Italy, during the Kosovo war. Among them were the CBC’s Paul Workman in Paris, France; his colleague Neil Macdonald in Washington, DC; and the Globe and Mail’s Geoffrey York in Beijing, China. Lastly, I must single out CTV’s Washington bureau chief Joy Malbon for her televised interview from Aviano with a Canadian Forces CF-18 pilot—who had his back to the camera—which inspired my research.