'Awful, despicable': Canadian veterans slam Trump's comments about NATO troops

When Bruce Moncur was on the front lines in Afghanistan, there's one name that was certainly absent among the Americans he fought alongside.

"I didn't see anyone with the name tag 'Trump' … and I can almost guarantee, or I know for a fact, his sons were nowhere near the front line," said Moncur, a retired corporal with Canada's Armed Forces.

"So I guess people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Those stones Moncur referred to are the recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump about the contributions of NATO soldiers in general, and particularly, in Afghanistan.

“We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them," Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

"You know, [NATO]’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did — they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines."

His comments provoked outrage from members of the NATO alliance, along with veterans of the Afghan war. Some have taken to Reddit, posting pictures of themselves in combat gear from their tours in Afghanistan, while cheekily describing themselves as "doing nothing."

In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts. Washington had invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty — calling for aid from its allies in response to the attacks on the U.S.

It was the first, and so far only, time a member had invoked the alliance's mutual defence clause, obliging all member countries to come to the aid of another member whose sovereignty or territorial integrity might be under threat.

Hundreds of NATO troops were killed during the Afghan war. More than 40,000 Canadians served; the country's largest deployment since the Second World War, according to Veterans Affairs Canada website.

While in Afghanistan, 158 Forces members, a diplomat, four aid workers, a government contractor and a journalist lost their lives. As well, thousands of other Forces members and civilians were also injured.

Moncur was wounded in September 2006 during Operation Medusa — the largest battle fought by Canadian troops since the Korean War — in a friendly fire incident involving an American A-10 aircraft. 

"I was shot in the head and I have a big scar thanks to that. And I felt the wind on my brains," he said.

"Anybody that's experienced that was nowhere near the back of the fight, [but] was up at the front."