The Consummate Expert in Chivalric Traditions and the Tragic Unexpected

"Something happened with that spear, and he lost control of it or it turned, hit the ground, and as his horse was moving, the tip of it went into him."
"He got off the horse, took some steps and people noticed he was bleeding.
"[The Society for Creative Anachronism observes a] very strict set of rules [and safety measures with its] combat-related activities."
"He was the consummate expert. [It is] shocking to have this happen to one of the best people in our organization."

"It was just something that happened and we still don’t have a grasp of it. [It was] shocking to have this happen to one of the best people in our organization. It is a horrible set of circumstances that caused this."

John Fulton, president, Society for Creative Anachronism

Medieval knight re-enactor Peter Barclay at a previous show

A master re-enactor of Medieval conflict, its appurtenances, courtesies and combat styles and weaponry, Peter Barclay, 53, of Woodbridge, Virginia, a retired Army lieutenant-colonel who became Master Terafan Greydragon when he was performing with the above-noted troupe, inadvertently impaled himself with his lance during a performance competition in Williamstown, Kentucky this past Saturday.

This man was past being merely competent in the use of Medieval weaponry, how to handle weapons once used on the battlefield when Knights of the Round Table rode out in defence of their Lord and Lady. He was, if anyone could be described as such, a master, an expert in the use of lances weighing two to three pounds, metal tipped, seven feet in length and potentially dangerous. But there never had been any untoward and unexpected accident ending in death in these re-enactment performances and no reason to imagine there might be.

Master Terafan Greydragon was a veteran at the games, involved for the past three decades. A man of valour and high intelligence, a consultant at the Pentagon, he had finally reached his retirement years as a professional soldier, but not necessarily as a re-enactor, doing what he obviously loved best; offering re-enactment homage to his professional predecessors.

Photo: Ancient Origins

With over 30,000 members associated with the group, involved with their chapters in the United Kingdom, Austria, Australia and Denmark, Master Tarafan Greydragon was well known for his ease with a lance. So familiar was he with the knightly wielding of a lance that he taught others who aspired to his level of competence and renown how to safely and elegantly use the weapon.

He taught beginners how to ride horses with ease, and to perform the activities associated with the Medieval events and re-enactments, an acknowledged leader in the group, its deputy for activities depending on equestrian professionalism. On Saturday he wore a doublet, a period-era short, tight-fitting jacket traditionally worn at such events.

During the Medieval period, contestants demonstrating their ease with use of the lance and control of their horses during jousts also wore full body armour. But this demonstration that he was engaged in on Saturday was viewed as a casual timed event and as such no other riders were in the ring at the time Master Terafan Greydragon was performing. A performance he would familiarly take part in two or three times monthly.

At the Kentucky event in a large pavilion with spectators present, competitive riders took part in a performance that saw them plucking their lance from a hay bale, then ride with it, handling the lance to spear and raise up a paper plate resting on the ground to demonstrate their proficiency in the use of the spear-ended lance. He was in the process of completing the course when somehow his two-metre-long lance failed his grasp and he was impaled.

He dismounted from his horse, walked a few steps, at which time those witnessing the event realized he was badly injured and bleeding. He collapsed and was airlifted to a hospital. Master Terafan Greydragon was unable to hold out, his vital signs steadily and inexorably diminishing, and he died before reaching the hospital.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter C. Barclay, who died in a freak accident last weekend. (Image: John Barclay)

Mistaken Identity/The Fog of Conflict

"[Kurds at the outpost that night were] legitimately concerned about an additional attack by ISIS, similar to the one they'd experienced the night before."
"Our [Canadian instructors] presence at or near the forward positions remains the exception and definitely not the rule."
"He was looking at Canadians, but he saw what he thought was an ISIS infiltration and attack on his position. [The Kurdish combatant] did not wake up in the morning wanting to kill a Canadian soldier."
Canadian special forces commander Brig.-Gen. Mike Rouleau

"[Two separate investigations held responsible] mistaken identity and a breakdown in communication in a setting characterized by tension, fatigue and confusion."
"[Investigators concluded that Sgt.Andrew Joseph Doiron] performed his job to the highest standards both prior to and throughout the incident [and the Canadians] conducted their operations appropriately and in concert with all pre-approved and accepted protocols."
"It was also determined that no Arabic was spoken by [Doiron's team] on the approach to the final position that night, and that Arabic was only spoken after the accident, during the co-ordination of the medevac."
Investigative report on 'mistaken identity' tragedy

Corporal Levarre McDonald 8 Wing Imaging    A repatriation ceremony for Sergeant Andrew Doiron at CFB Trenton on March 10, 2015.

 

When four Canadian soldiers were fired upon by their Kurdish counterparts on March 6, killing their leader, St. Andrew Joseph Doiron and injuring others, shock and dismay ensued on both sides. At the time, a Kurdish commander had been quoted as suggesting that blame for the unfortunate incident was attributable to the fact that the Canadians had approached "the fighting without our co-ordination", and that since the Canadians had spoken in Arabic "leading the peshmerga to believe they were ISIL militants", they were shot.

Dozens of Canadian commandos, specialized in conflict situations were in northern Iraq to help Kurdish fighters in their conflict with the Islamic State. The outpost in question had been under attack the night before, when though several ISIS jihadis were killed, the Kurds also took losses. Early that day the Canadians had been asked by the Kurds to help fortify the position, and they agreed they would return later that night, to do just that.

In the interim the original Kurdish fighters who had requested Canadian help, were withdrawn, with a replacement group moving into the position. The new group, knowing what had occurred the night before with a deadly ISIS attack were nervous, and no one had explained to them the agreement made earlier in the day with the Canadian soldiers. When the Canadian special forces team headed by Sgt. Doiron moved in the dark toward the defended position they noted the presence of a Kurdish fighter on a rooftop.

Simultaneously, the Kurd noted the presence of the four Canadians approaching their position. Sgt. Doiron called out a pre-arranged coded greeting to assure the Kurds that it was the Canadian group coming closer. In response the Canadians could hear the sound of a weapon being cocked: "Wow, wow, wow, Canada!", called out Sgt. Doiron. Whereupon the Kurdish fighter opened fire hitting the sergeant while the others dived for cover.

And then a machine gun was brought into action, bullets flooding from the Kurdish outpost that the Canadians had been approaching as had been pre-arranged earlier that same day. Each time the three Canadian soldiers attempted to retrieve their fallen comrade, the Kurds opened fire again, finally hitting the other three Canadians as well. In the melee that ensued, the Canadians held their fire. And then the Kurds understood that they had fired in error.

They collected Sgt. Doiron and the rest of the team into vehicles and drove to where a helicopter could evacuate them for medical treatment. It was too late, however, to save Sgt. Doiron. Now Canadian military officials have made public the details of exactly what had occurred, releasing a summary of two separate investigations. It was revealed that the Canadian team had encountered a pack of wild dogs as they made their way to the outpost.


The barking that ensued, according to Brig.-Gen. Rouleau "likely further heightened already high Kurdish anxiety levels." Now, in the wake of that unfortunate blight in the co-operation between the Kurdish peshmerga and Canadian instructors, Canadian soldiers in Iraq are permitted to move at night only when escorted by a Kurdish soldier.

That "friendly fire" incident appears to be a standard in all theatres of war; accidents that simply don't seem to be preventable in the confusion that always accompanies such events, when nervous soldiers standing guard occasionally pull the trigger, intimidated by what they are uncertain of, determined to evade facing an enemy, with dire consequences, as a result of not being sufficiently alert.

Behind The Camouflage

"For reasons no one understands ... the people that end up being attracted to or choose military service -- for whatever reason -- have higher rates of exposure to childhood adversity than civilians, or people who don't elect to be in the military."
"And given that childhood adversity is such a powerful risk factor for depression, and for suicidal thinking, suicidal behaviour and many other adverse health outcomes -- that, I think, is an important piece of the picture."
"[Researchers] haven't dug deep enough yet [to fully understand the links]. We'll know a lot more in a little bit of time. They [research findings] were very preliminary numbers. If it didn't fit in with the larger narrative we saw elsewhere, we wouldn't have presented it."
Dr. Mark Zamorski, Canadian 2015 study co-author

"These findings suggest that evaluation of childhood trauma is important in the clinical assessment and treatment of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation among military personnel and veterans."
Dr. Nagy Youssef, 2013 study, United States

Lars Hagberg / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo   Canadian forces see an extraordinarily high rate of depression, estimated at around 8 per cent in the last mental-health survey.

Most people might assume that the military attracts confident, self-assured people looking for a career in public security dedicated to upholding the values of one's country, combining patriotism with a sense of duty and a wish to be integrally involved at the fighting-level in defence of one's nation. Since people have to pass tests to ensure they are physically fit, as well as other tests to make certain that they have no serious psychological road-blocks to pursuing their duties in the military, one might think these represent sufficient guards against absorbing individuals whose traumatized past will interfere with their professional future.

On the other hand, in both Canada and the United States the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder and a seemingly unusual high number of suicides has taken the news since both countries were involved in the unexpectedly long conflict in Afghanistan. Statistics both uphold the view that the number of suicides by veterans of conflict are higher than those in the general population, and claims that they are no higher. The occurrence of psychological trauma resulting from exposure to conflict  however, has caused high numbers of PST, enough to concern government and the military for its high cost in recognition, treatment and inability of enlisted personnel to pursue their professional duties.

In 2013, a major American study was undertaken by the mental-health research branch of the Veterans Administration, Duke University and the University of Alabama. That research study concluded with the realization that abuse, neglect and allied childhood problems contributed to problems for soldiers in later life. And now, the preliminary results of an not-yet-published study conducted by health researchers at Canada's Department of National Defence, with research carried out by the department of psychiatry, University of Manitoba and the Canadian Forces Directorate of Mental Health, has reached a similar conclusion.

Results suggest that 39 percent of members of the Canadian military had been slapped or spanked as children, with comparable research on the general population indicating that 22 percent of civilians suffered a similar experience as children. Seventeen percent of military members reported that they were thrown, pushed or grabbed more than three times as children, in comparison with 22 percent of civilians. Military respondents reported that 15 percent had been kicked, bitten, punched, choked, burned or attacked as youngsters, while civilian counterparts represented ten percent suffering like events.

And ten percent of soldiers reported having witnessed "intimate partner violence" while they were growing up. The civilian figure was 8 percent. Data derived from the mental-health portion of the 2012 Canadian Community Health survey, which questioned over 25,000 individuals, and the 2013 Canadian Forces Mental Health Survey based on responses from over 8,100 members of the military provided the figures for the study. Those numbers are critical in the understanding of just why it is that Canadian military personnel experience a higher than average rate of depression, linked to suicide, according to Dr. Zamorski.

Perhaps when the study has been finalized, another facet of the puzzle may also be answered; why it is that people who suffered physical and mental intimidation as children seem to gravitate to the military, where discipline can be seen by some as coercive and difficult, perhaps balanced by the fact that within the military, its members tend to view one another as part of one big family looking out for one another. Or is that too, a myth?

And perhaps as another by-product of the study it could be extended to reason out why it is that children of military members appear to suffer more abuse at the hands of their parents than children in the general population. The popular hypothesis is that the stress that military families undergo takes its toll on the welfare of their children. Or could it be that members of the military who had suffered abuse as children themselves, were imprinted at a young age with the pathology of abuse which they in turn impose on their own children?

Chevalier Harvey Wittenberg

"It was a horrible place to see, the ovens, the mass graves [Auschwitz]. It was hard to realize that people could make others suffer so much. But they did. I saw it. I've never forgotten it."
"It came as quite a surprise to me [receiving the French Rank of Knight of the Legion of Honour] I would be honoured in this way. I appreciate it very much, but there was a lot of men I knew in the war who should be getting it. If there was only some way I could reach them and say, 'Here. I'm getting this for you.' I accepted it on their behalf."
"Sometimes my mind goes back to the war. I don't think anyone who has served can ever really forget it. You can't really shut it out of your mind. Sometimes I still dream of things that happened int he war."
"Nijmegen was scary. [Nijmegen Salient, among the last major battles of WWII.] The Germans broke through and we were surrounded for a short while."
"We'd all heard so much about it [Auschwitz]. I had to see it for myself. They showed us where they burned the bodies in the ovens, and the mass graves. The smell was something awful. I find it difficult to believe anyone would say it never happened."
"I've had the opportunity in my 94 years to see some big changes in the world, but when I think of my grandchildren [six] I wonder what kind of world they are going to face. There's going to be another war. That's inevitable."
Harvey Wittenberg, Canadian serviceman during the Second World War

Jean Levac/Ottawa Citizen

Harvey Wittenberg visited Auschwitz after its liberation, when the Second World War was declared over. At the time he was a corporal with what remained of the Canadian occupation forces. He was assigned to drive a Jeep of senior Canadian military officers through the gates of Auschwitz, a geographic place transformed into a living hell for its unfortunate inmates. One of the most infamous of the horribly genocidal Last Solution slaughter houses of the Third Reich. Ninety percent of the estimated million people whose lives were obliterated there were Jews.

In 1939 at the age of 17 Mr. Wittenberg became a reservist in the Canadian Army Service Corps. At eighteen he walked into a recruiting office on Queen Street, Toronto, to enlist his services for active duty in the war. In 1940 he arrived with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in England, spending the following two years training in various camps around the British Isles, learning to drive anything on wheels; motorcycles, jeeps, troop trucks.

The 1942 Dieppe raid saw the 2nd Division providing most of the men for Operation Jubilee. Many of the almost five thousand men and officers who went ashore were taken prisoner, but 3,369 were killed or wounded. Mr. Wittenberg's role had been to load equipment on the landing craft used in the raid; he was not among those taken prisoner. In 1944 he was hiding in roadside ditches in France as German fighters and bombers struck Canadian troops during the fighting for the port city of Caen.

His division fought across the Belgian border after the Caen campaign, moving on to the Scheldt Estuary where fighting was fierce and the 2nd Division lost 3,650 men during thirty-three days of combat. This elderly man with his searing memories recalled seeing German soldiers shooting Allied soldiers as they descended in parachutes: "The Germans killed them before they even landed", he said of that mournful memory scalded into his memory.

During the final months of the war his division was struck with some of its heaviest casualties; at least 300 men were killed and over a thousand wounded between late February and March of 1945; a month before the end of the war on May 5. He remained in the army for another year, helping with the disbanding of army units and the return of troops to Canada. It was at this juncture that he had visited Auschwitz.

In late December of 2014, the Government of France honoured Mr. Wittenberg with the Legion of Honour, the country's highest decoration, as a Chevalier (Knight). A commendation long in the coming, but appreciated irrespective. This was France's undertaking reflecting on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in June of 1944, in recognition of about 600 surviving Canadian veterans who had taken part in the campaigns for the liberation of France from Nazi occupation.

Tomorrow's Other Life

"He said [in a video] he didn't want us to cry. He said we'll see each other tomorrow."
"He always wanted to be in the military. Since he was a  young boy."
"When he decided to join after secondary school, we didn't like it at all -- he's my only son. But later on we thought, 'If I don't let my son join the military, and others and others don't let their sons join, then who is going to protect this country?"
"We came from a city of 800,000 people to a town of 15,000. We didn't know the market here. We didn't know if the people would like our food. But Marc gave his life, and we said we're going to do it for him. There was no question in my mind that we would do this, and we've had no regrets at all."
Hani Diab, proprietor, Madameek restaurant, Petawawa, Ontario

Marc Diab died in Afghanistan in 2009. His family has fulfilled his wish to open a restaurant in Petawawa.

A 22-year-old member of the Canadian military, among the 158 that died in Afghanistan during Canada's time in Kandahar Province in the dozen years Canada was a member of the NATO-led coalition battling the Afghanistan Taliban and attempting to help the country bring order, security and modernity to its embattled nation, died an untimely death. On March 8, 2009 the military vehicle that  Marc Diab was travelling in along with other soldiers hit an IED, a roadside bomb, and he died.

Jihan Falah, Marc Diab's mother, her husband Hani Diab and their family of three young children emigrated to Canada from their home in Lebanon, in 2000, when Marc, the youngest of the family was 13. The day before he died he had written: "The military definitely changed my life for the better". Soon after his death while serving with the Royal Canadian Dragoons, a friend of Marc's gave his parents a video he had made of his wishes in the event of his death.

While he loved being a soldier, serving in the military, he also became attached to the military environment where he received his training. His parents were in the restaurant business in Mississauga, and Marc began to think about how he would like himself to open a similar Lebanese-food restaurant in Petawawa, to treat those with whom he worked to authentic Lebanese dishes.

On his death, his grieving parents, looking for some way to assuage their grief, focused on their son's wishes.

Maya Diab-Ghanem prepares shawarmas at Petawawa’s Madameek restaurant, which she and her family opened in 2010, a year after her brother, Trooper Marc Diab, was killed in an IED explosion in Afghanistan.    Bruce Deachman / Ottawa Citizen

They sold their Toronto properties and moved to Petawawa. And there they opened their Madameek restaurant. Inside the restaurant a framed commemoration of the 158 Canadian soldiers who died in Afghanistan is hung, among them the likeness of Marc Diab, listed as "number 112". The Madameek restaurant has become a favourite place to eat in Petawawa. And the extended, close family has all moved there.

"It's close to where Marc was, and it also gives us closure. It makes us feel that we are still close to him, that he's with us", explained his sister Maya. "Marc was very family-oriented. In one email I got from him, he told me that he always loves to see our family close, and live close together. So after he passed away and my family came here to open the restaurant, my husband and I decided to follow."

Mr. Diab, Marc's father, was asked by the Department of National Defence if he would consider hiring the four soldiers who had been with his son when the IED explosion took place. This would  be related to the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Program meant to help in preparing members of the military return to civilian life.

"They were friends of Marc's and the military wanted to put them in a warm, family setting. They thought that putting them with us would make a difference, and it did. They were lost when they started here, and now each of them has a business; one of them owns a golf club, another one runs a paintball field, and a third is a fitness instructor.

"We feel that Petawawa is our home now, and we would do anything for the military. We never felt that Marc left us, and when his colleagues come in here in uniform, we see Marc in them, all the time. He gave his life for Canada, for every kid and every man and woman in Canada. We think that God had his wisdom when he picked Marc up."

PETAWAWA -When he retired from the military, Trooper Marc Diab planned to open a Lebanese restaurant in the community he adopted as his second home.

Remorse, of Course

"The system worked. I've always been proud of my army. All I want to do now is go north and hug my kids and my wife."
"I ask that you permit me to retire at a reduced rank and not punish my family by depriving them of the benefits they have earned serving alongside me all these years."
"I have squandered a fortune of life's blessings, blessings of family, work and friendship. I put myself and the army in this position with my selfish, self-destructive and hurtful acts."
Brigadier-General Jeffrey Sinclair

FILE - In this March 4, 2014, file photo, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair leaves the courthouse following a day of motions at Fort Bragg, N.C.  (AP Photo/The Fayetteville Observer, James Robinson, File)

"Your misconduct is supposed to come when you are young and you're stupid right? The army is used to that. That's not what happened here. This officer took his rank, his authority, his skill, his training, and the utter and complete confidence the army placed in him, and he used it to harm junior officers."
Major Rebecca DiMuro, army special victim prosecutor

"I can't believe it. I know John Pohl to be one of the best judges in the army judicial system, but ... this is an individual who should not be a general officer. He should have gone to jail and dismissed from the army."
Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Gary D. Solis teaching law at West Point and Georgetown University

From his position of command and power, 51-year-old Brig.-Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, former deputy commander of the United States 82nd Airborne Division, preyed on subordinates. Forcing women to obey his commands, having nothing whatever to do with their professional status as members of the American Armed Forces, and everything to do with his sexual drive to see women under his command as possibly his own very selective harem.

He spoke of his "selfish, self-destructive and hurtful acts", and this descriptive was solely self-identifying. Self-destructive, rather than destructive of other peoples' right to respect, privacy, self-esteem and sovereign determination of their own bodies in their own defence, which he, with his authority and his demands, wrenched violently from them.

There was, primarily, a three-year 'affair' with a captain under his command, an affair that was forced upon the captain, with oppressive demands and violent threats should she ever feel strong enough to defy him and to divulge the misery he had thrust upon her. And there were two additional, more 'casual' predations where again he misused his command to defile a relationship with women over whom he had professional authority.

The system worked indeed, but in his favour, not theirs, seeking retribution in an acknowledgment of their suffering. His sentence seems inappropriate and insufficient to the actions he forced upon those women. Reprimand and $20,000 in pay docked. This man was the highest-ranking American military officer to face court martial on sexual assault charges. But when he pleaded guilty to 'inappropriate relationships' with the three women, those charges were dropped.

At a time when violence against women in the military, and an epidemic of rape has become a matter of huge public concern, one shared by the Pentagon brass, one of their own, performing degrading acts on women made helpless to defy him, has been demonstrated to rate a fairly perfunctory punishment. His reputation, needless to say, will have suffered, but to what extent can be questioned given the prevailing attitudes of power and victimhood.

The 34-year-old female captain he forced oral sex upon, his threats to kill her and her family should she seek to reveal their liaisons, none of this deemed of sufficient criminality to send him to prison? It was her determination to seek justice in coming forward to reveal the indignities and violence she suffered that brought charges of sexual assault against the man.

The presiding judge offered no explanation for his choice of sentence. Brig.-Gen. Sinclair's next move will be to stand before Major-General Clarence Chinn, Fort Bragg commander who approved the plea arrangement. He will receive a verbal or a written reprimand.

And finally, a board will determine whether he will lose rank, before retiring from the military, a punishment that might end up costing him hundreds of thousands in retirement benefits.