"'WE DRAW OUR VALUES FROM CANADIAN SOCIETY, AND ALL ITS PARTS,'" KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD (MAY 20, 2003).

Copyright Kingston Whig-Standard 2003

Royal Military College of Canada principal John Scott Cowan delivered the following convocation address at the college's May 16 convocation ceremony.

Chancellor, Commandant, distinguished guests, and the extended family of the college, before recounting to you the remarkable achievements of our three honorary graduands, I would like to speak directly to those graduating today. I congratulate all our 62 recipients of graduate degrees, and our 228 recipients of undergraduate degrees. The ceremonies of this weekend, including today's convocation and tomorrow morning's parade, are quite different from graduation events at other Canadian universities.

For example, this happy event is always a bit more serious than convocation at conventional universities because of the heavy responsibilities taken on immediately by any member of the profession of arms after completing a period of study and scholarship.

And as I gaze out over the sea of scarlet before me, I am reminded that we are beginning a weekend packed with pageantry and symbolism unparalleled in Canada. And it is about the symbols that I want to talk to you today. Those symbols to which we are so strongly and emotionally attached - the uniforms, the insignia, the colours, the music and the drill itself - are, for the most part, old and, for the most part, of British derivation. Some of the symbols date back two centuries and more, though others are more recent.

Our symbols have deep meaning for us, but they do sometimes cause portions of the general public to imagine that we are happily stuck in a time warp, and they mistakenly think that our ideas and our ethos are also those of the British forces of two centuries ago.

By accident, I got a new insight recently into how far from that era we've come when I was reading the autobiography of one of the greatest North American military leaders of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a man who was a soldier for 51 years, and who seemed almost to have a late 20th century eye when observing the ethos of two centuries ago. His name was Makataimeshekiakiak, which, in the Sauk language, means Black Sparrow Hawk, but we know him today as Black Hawk. He was the only enemy of the United States after which the U.S. has ever named a major weapons system, the Black Hawk helicopter. Interestingly, a division of the U.S. Army and a professional hockey team also adopted his name.

He was an ally of Britain through most of his life; he fought in the War of 1812 around western Lake Erie with British forces commanded by Henry Proctor, and he grew to dislike the way the British and Americans made war. Writing in 1833, he recalled his reaction to Proctor's blunders attacking Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson. Remembering his visit to a friend's village on his way home from the war in 1813, Black Hawk retold what he had said even then:

"After eating, I gave an account of what I had seen and done. I explained to them the manner the British and the Americans fought. Instead of stealing upon each other, and taking every advantage to kill the enemy and save their own people, as we do, (which, with us is considered good policy in a war chief,) they march out, in open daylight, and fight, regardless of the numbers of warriors they may lose! After the battle is over, they retire to feast, and drink wine, as if nothing had happened; after which, they make a statement in writing, of what they have done - each party claiming the victory! And neither giving an account of half the number that have been killed on their own side. They all fought like braves, but would not do to lead a war party with us. Our maxim is, 'to kill the enemy, and save our own men.' Those chiefs would do to paddle a canoe but not to steer it."

Black Hawk had always commanded forces which included many of his relatives, and he detested the lack of concern that British and American officers showed for their men. He also abhorred mixing alcohol with military operations. Black Hawk was enraged when other Indian allies mistreated American prisoners of war, and he forced them to stop, which Brig.-Gen. Porter had not done.

Writing about his experiences against the Americans during the Black Hawk War of 1832, he is critical of the American failure to distinguish combatants from non-combatants, the failure to honour flags of truce, and the failure to negotiate truthfully for cessation of hostilities.

Today, 165 years after Black Hawk's death, and 190 years after the battles on the Detroit frontier, the views we now hold of everything from rules of engagement to duty of care are much closer to those of Black Hawk than to those of the European or American generals of his era.

This is not completely surprising, since modern Canadian views on many social or ethical issues stem from an egalitarian and co- operative model of society which would have been more familiar to Black Hawk than to his British contemporaries.

So our symbols may be old and somewhat British, but our ethos is certainly modern, with roots in many other cultures, including, demonstrably, those of the First Nations of this continent. In these things the Canadian Forces and the Royal Military College of Canada are a true representation of Canadian society. We draw our values from that society, and all its parts. We educate those who pass through this place exactly so that they will fully understand and be a part of the culture they are called upon to defend. The ethos of the college and of the Canadian Forces is the ethos of Canada as applied to the profession of arms. It cannot be otherwise, and a primary guarantee of that link is the liberal education of the core curriculum at RMC. The officer cadets graduating today are the first class which has had all four years of the new core curriculum, including psychology, ethics, leadership, Canadian history, military history, politics, civics, law, international affairs, cross cultural relations, logic, mathematics, IT, physics, chemistry, English and French.

Of course, we love our symbols too. For us, they are continuity, they are respect for tradition, and they are a reminder of duty. But we are not stuck in the past just because we honour it.