Hurricane Mike Thompson gives us all cause to pause with his new ballad about a soldier fighting in Afghanistan By Mark Bonokoski "What a hard place for opinion, what a hard place for religion "And what a hard place for a soldier in these lands "Where no flags of freedom stand." -- Flags of Freedom As you read this today, wave upon wave of young Canadian soldiers continue to board troop carriers for deployment to the danger zone of Afghanistan, a land where no flags of freedom yet truly stand because the Taliban has other plans. It began at July's end and, up until the middle of this month, every second day will see 150 fresh troops board one of those human cargo planes until the total reaches 2,000 -- with 1,600 of those soldiers coming out of CFB Petawawa, the base that forms the heart of a small military town not far from Ottawa. These are the replacements for those already in far-off Afghanistan -- those who have done their bit, who have risked their lives, and who have earned their keep. Some of them, of course, are already home. It's just that they didn't come home alive. If there were ever an anthem written for the Canadian soldier in Afghanistan -- no longer a peacekeeper, but a firefighting peacemaker -- it is a ballad written by Hurricane Mike Thompson, a truck driver from Tottenham, just north of Toronto, who writes and performs the kind of songs that should give us all cause to pause. Flags of Freedom is one of those songs. It comes at a time when one of Canada's favourite sons of protest, Neil Young, has released a song by the same name, as a track on an album called Living With War. But the lyrics, and the tune, do not compare. Neil Young wants to impeach a president. Neil Young is angry. But not so Hurricane Mike Thompson. Instead of writing about the wrongness of the war in Iraq as Neil Young does, Hurricane Mike Thompson writes of a young soldier writing home to his mother and father from the war zone of Afghanistan. "Well, I sure miss you all and love you, but I'm 22, and I've become a man," he sings. "I just hope you'll think of me where there's peace and liberty. "In that place I'd rather be, the true north strong and free. "A land ... where the flags of freedom stand." Those with computer savvy (and the necessary software) can hear Hurricane's four-minute ballad to our soldiers by going to torontosun.com/flags. On Tuesday, if all goes according to plan, Hurricane Mike Thompson's Flags of Freedom will be featured on former Toronto police union boss Craig Bromell's newly-fitted radio show which goes live from 10 a.m. until noon on Toronto's AM640. The Thompson segment, with me as Bromell's guest, is slated for approximately 11 a.m. Those reading this in Ottawa, where Corus has no affiliate, can tune to Rob Snow's show on 580 CFRA tomorrow between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Hurricane Mike Thompson, married and father of one, still puts bread on the table today by hauling truck for Norus Packaging, a corrugated paper producer in the village of Tottenham. He has covered a great many miles on his road to discovery, and has had brushes with greatness, having jammed with Jeff Healey and other notables since he first took to various rough-and-tumble stages back in the '70s. We met for the first time three years ago, when the impending winter wind was about to turn Toronto into a deep freeze, and city politicians -- again -- were talking of the perils that would soon face the homeless as they tried to tug at every heartstring in order to get elected. Hurricane Mike Thompson, as it happened, had just recorded a song called Colder Days and, if there was ever a ballad for the plight of the homeless, this was it -- a country-style song that begins with the plaintive wail of the harmonica, followed by lyrics as chilling as those colder days ahead. It was November. The municipal election had just ended. David Miller was the new mayor, and one of the election planks he used in his campaign was a promise of an additional 2,000 affordable housing units a year. It was a song, in fact, which longtime friend and sound technician Tim Lentz believed should have launched a career which should have been launched years ago if the record industry wasn't so fickle and so myopic, and if the music industry wasn't so enthralled with the hype surrounding brain-dead reality shows like Canadian Idol. "Hurricane Mike Thompson is one of the most talented, sensitive musicians I know," said Lentz. "I have rubbed shoulders with the very best, and Hurricane never fails to impress me with his talent, his words, and his deeds," he added. "He is always there with a song or his instrument to lend support to any cause, or any musician who needs it." We all know what happened when our politicians set out to deal with the homeless. We got a $90,000 street count, estimating that 818 people were living out on the street on April 19, the day the census was taken. Miracle cures And, as the Sun's city hall columnist Sue-Ann Levy recently pointed out, we get the loop-tape refrain that claims more than 700 hardcore homeless have been moved into homes since February 2005, when the mayor's $18-million "Streets To Homes" program was put into place. But it doesn't make November any less cold for those 818 in the head count. But, then again, November will also bring us another municipal election, and elections are times when miracle cures are most often presented. Within the next two weeks, however, the final of the 2,000 Canadian soldiers tagged for deployment to Afghanistan will have boarded the troop planes. And, as Hurricane Mike Thompson wrote: "We're here to do our bit; and we don't intend to quit "Till these lands ... "Let flags of freedom stand." Hurricane Mike Thompson, a truck driver from Tottenham, writes and performs the kind of songs that should give us all cause to pause. Flags of Freedom, about a young solder writing home to his mother and father from the war zone of Afghanistan, is one of those songs. mark.bonokoski@tor.sunpub.com