"Terror on the Alert" in Ottawa

My recent visit to Ottawa included a stop at Perfect Books, 258A Elgin Street, to do an author appearance and book signing event. The folks at Perfect were terrific hosts, and as you can see from the photo at left there was at least one very pleased customer. In fact, there were quite a few, including old friends and shipmates.





A lot of the credit for the very successful event must go to various news outlets such as CBC Ottawa, and in particular to Alan Neal (at right) of "All in a Day" and his producer Caitlin Crockard. They started off my interview with a clip from John F. Kennedy's speech to the American people at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis--the time frame of "Terror on the Alert". Made me think back to where I was when I heard it live. (UBC, wondering if I'd be off to join the fleet.)

Other media interviews were ably conducted by Ed Hand ("Talk to the Hand") of 1130 News, and Nick Vandergagt ("Nick at Night") on CFRA.

Navy Woes and Cavalry Stories

Tomorrow, July 30th, will be a busy day for Soldier of the Horse.

The good people at The Early Edition on CBC Vancouver have invited me to attend for an interview at 7:50 am tomorrow (0750 for present and former RCN readers, 0750 hours for all you army types out there). The occasion is a Vancouver Public Library/Royal United Services Institute initiative: the showing of the movie "War Horse" at 1:30 pm, same day, at the VPL. Later, at 7:00 pm I'll be speaking in the library about my father's time in the Canadian cavalry in the Great War and Soldier of the Horse.
My talk is the first of four scheduled in the VPL to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One.

In the meantime, across the Pacific, the huge naval, land, and air exercise RIMPAC 2014 continues. But the Royal Canadian Navy finds itself short of seagoing ships. Our submarine Victoria is there, along with frigate HMCS Calgary and minesweeper HMCS Nanaimo (she is in California waters, as opposed to the central Pacific/Hawaii).
Missing in action are HMCShips Algonquin (destroyer, rusting out),  Protecteur (fire damaged supply ship), and minesweeper Whitehorse (bad behavior by members of the crew). You have to sympathize with navy personnel who in typical Canadian fashion carry on with less. Less money, less fuel, lesser numbers of ships. One has to wonder who will protect Canadian interests at sea in case of need.