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There was a time when Canadian soldiers were universally viewed as the world’s peacekeepers.

But that reputation was badly smeared 25 years ago when some of this country’s elite soldiers, considered the best of the best, took the law into their own hands while serving to preserve the peace as part of a United Nations mission in war-torn Somalia, on the eastern horn of Africa.

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The Somalia Affair, possibly the darkest period in Canada’s military history, resulted in the deaths of two Somali men, the charging of a handful of soldiers and, eventually, the disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, a rapid-reaction force of paratroopers created in 1968 that actually traced its lineage to the Second World War.

Additionally, it left the reputation of this country as a nation of peacekeepers in tatters and brought shame to the entire military.

WHAT HAPPENED

The Canadian Airborne Regiment was sent to Somalia, a hot and dusty nation wracked by famine, civil war and bloodshed, on Dec. 15, 1992, as part of a UN humanitarian mission.