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Topic: Atlantic Canada pays bloody price for mission in Afghanistan as losses mount (Read 301 times)
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Jesse Reed
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News From the canadian press
HALIFAX (CP) - If the military mission in Afghanistan has exacted a heavier toll in any one part of this country, it is in its eastern reaches where generations have signed up and headed off to war.
Of the 53 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002, a disproportionate 21 have come from or were raised in Atlantic Canada, a region that has a long history of sending its residents to conflicts around the world. "This isn't something that's new - this is an area that has recruited disproportionately higher in the military than other parts of Canada," David Charters, a professor of military history, said from the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.
"If you look at the number of casualties incurred in Afghanistan, there's been a very substantial proportion from the Maritime region and that reflects the disproportionate number of Maritimers who serve in the Armed Forces."
The military doesn't keep track of where its recruits come from originally, but keeps tabs on where they signed up for service.
According to recent figures, about 23 per cent of the roughly 5,900 people recruited into the military's regular force were from Atlantic Canada, while 26 per cent were from Quebec and 33 per cent were from Ontario. About 19 per cent came from the West.
Atlantic Canada's population is 7.2 per cent of the total in Canada.
That's not something that's likely going to change as Atlantic Canadians carry on a tradition of military service that dates back decades.
"People in Atlantic Canada have a long an honourable history of serving their country," said Alex Morrison, a retired lieutenant-colonel and research fellow at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
"Service in the military in Atlantic Canada is a family tradition. It's also an outgrowth of citizenship in the Atlantic provinces that people are glad to serve their country and one of the major ways they do it is by serving in the military."
In a region that has historically had limited employment opportunities, the military provided an appealing alternative to life on the farm, in a fishing boat or at the mill, says Charters.
And when one family member signs up, others will often follow suit as is the case with several of the Atlantic Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
"Military families often beget military families, with the tradition being handed to grandfather to son to son to grandson," said Charters.
"It may well be the combination of tradition and social and economic options. And, Maritimers do have a sense of duty to country. I think it's been proven in past conflicts."
Yet, that sense of duty has carried a terrible price for families in the region that have anxiously sent their sons off to war only to see them return in caskets.
In New Brunswick, comrades, family and friends were preparing Thursday to receive the latest casualties of the bloody conflict.
Master Cpl. Allan Stewart and Trooper Patrick James Pentland, 23, both of Petawawa's Royal Canadian Dragoons but originally from New Brunswick, died Wednesday after their armoured reconnaissance vehicle struck a roadside bomb near Kandahar.
Pentland's father, Jim, who also served in the military, spoke about how his son wanted to follow in his footsteps.
"A lot of soldiers come out of the Maritimes. I don't know if it's a way of life or just following the adventure," he said Wednesday from the family's home near Fredericton.
"I'm not sure. I know for myself that was pretty well what it was about. I think for my son it was a similar thing because he grew up in a military environment and he always wanted to be a soldier and he enjoyed what he did."
Word of the deaths spread quickly across a country still grappling with the loss of six other Canadian soldiers on Easter Sunday. But for the families of other fallen soldiers, each new death forces them to relive their own tragic experiences.
"It certainly renews your memories and refreshes them. How could it not?" Angela Reid, whose son Cpl. Chris Reid was killed last August, said from her home in Truro, N.S.
"We're very saddened by it and we know what they're going through."
The loss of so many young men from one area has spawned a fraternity of grieving relatives, many of whom attend the funerals of soldiers they never knew and reach out to families they might otherwise have had little in common with.
Reid and a handful of other parents have gone to the memorial services and funerals of several other troops killed in Afghanistan, including Cpl. Kevin Megeney, Sgt. Darcy Tedford and Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, who were all from the area.
She recently contacted Megeney's family to offer her condolences and support, saying this network has become a "family to us."
"Although we're all different people and we didn't know each other, we definitely have this in common and we can reach out to each other and support each other," she said.
"When you embrace, you take comfort in the embrace because you know you're sharing the same thing. When you put your arms around them, you don't even have to say anything. It's just there."
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Jesse Reed
reedj@rogers.com
1-866-808-9066
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ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
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Interesting data here, and i am not surprised. When one is in the service it seem 3 out of every 4 come from somewhere in the Maritimes.. and it rubs off.. after a few years on the beautiful Mirimichi my mother noted my speech had a certain flare to it...i think some of it stays to this day..i do know i cannot recall any i served with from the Maritimes who were not great soldiers ,friends and comrades...ranrad
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RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
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Jesse Reed
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N.B. soldier determined to stay in Afghanistan despite 2 near-misses Sat Apr 14, 3:38 PM
By James Mccarten Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - A Canadian Forces soldier who braved the fiery aftermath of a
deadly roadside bomb in a futile bid to save the life of Trooper Patrick Pentland told his harrowing
tale Saturday to help his worried family understand why he's not yet ready to come home.
Cpl. Dave Gionet, 34, was part of a quick-response unit that was heading to the scene of an earlier
attack Wednesday when the Coyote armoured vehicle in front of him hit an improvised explosive device
(IED) in the volatile Zhari district west of Kandahar.
In halting English that betrayed both his Acadian roots and fragile state of mind, Gionet - who hails from
the town of Lameque in northeastern New Brunswick - read from an emotional letter that described how
he entered the burning, upended Coyote to try to extract his friend.
"When I arrived, the soldier was unconscious but breathing; I tried to stop the fire and the fuel leak from
getting
to us, but the flame was close and I could not put them out," Gionet said, the fabric name tag from Pentland's
combat shirt lying on the table in front of him.
"I said to myself . . . I would not let him burn."
It took another vehicle's strength to drag free the dislodged engine panel - Gionet himself became briefly trapped
underneath it as it was removed - before the unconscious Pentland could be carried away from the wreckage,
he said.
Once the soldier was out of the Coyote, Gionet began performing CPR while he waited for the medics to arrive.
"I started performing first aid on him. His breathing became slow, his heart (rate) was decreasing," Gionet said.
"I told him, 'You will not die on me.' "
Both Pentland and Master Cpl. Allan Stewart, 30, lost their lives in the attack.
It was the second close call in less than three weeks for Gionet, who was a few short steps away when an explosives-
detection dog detonated an IED March 20 near the village of Ahmadkhan west of Kandahar, killing the dog and injuring
both the dog's handler and a Canadian soldier.
Gionet said he wanted to tell his story to help explain to his family in Canada - wife Miranda and three-year-old daughter
Abrielle in Petawawa, Ont., and father Theophile and mother Celine in New Brunswick - why he simply can't honour their
fervent desire to see him home.
Gionet said he's choosing to remain in Afghanistan rather than go home to his family in Canada because he has a family
in Afghanistan right now that needs him more.
"I don't want to leave my friends behind," he said. "I have a job to do, and my job is to take care of my friends here
the best I can."
It's a decision any soldier can understand, said Lt. John Maerz, who was also on the scene of Wednesday's attack. He
said Gionet has a lot of shoulders to lean on as he presses forward with his duty.
"He's got a lot of support," Maerz said. "We've got a very strong, close-knit troop - it's like a family - and he's got a lot of
support in every direction. We've got a good group of guys working here."
Under the baking Afghanistan sun, Gionet fingered a small angel-shaped brooch given him by his mother - he calls it his "travel
angel" - and explained why he carries it everywhere he goes, as well as how he came to possess Pentland's name tag.
"It's saved my life twice already," he said matter-of-factly, showing the brooch to photographers. "That is always on
me. . . . I will never let that go."
Gionet used his combat shirt to try to stanch the flow of leaking fuel as he was struggling to get Pentland out of the Coyote, he
said. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, he asked for it back for fear he would lose the angel that he's convinced is
keeping him safe.
"I felt something powerful beside me, and when I turned, I looked at my shirt - I had Pentland's shirt on me," he said. "I don't
know how they got mixed (up), but I had his shirt on me. That's why, when I got to the hospital and all that, I kept his name
tag on me."
After a difficult week that included the fierce roadside bombing April 10 that killed six Canadian soldiers, troops in Gionet's squadron
got an emotional lift Friday when Cpl. Matthew Dicks of Conception Bay, N.L., who was also in Pentland's Coyote, showed up on
a stretcher to bid farewell to his fallen comrades.
With a black eye, an oxygen mask on his face and a pulse oximeter clipped to his finger, Dicks delivered a brisk salute along with
hundreds of other soldiers as the coffins of Pentland and Stewart were placed aboard a Hercules C-130 to be flown back to Canada.
Both Giomet and Maerz said the fact that Dicks was on hand for the solemn ceremony at all spoke volumes about his character.
"The morale of the guys skyrocketed, to be honest," Maerz said. "Knowing him as a soldier of mine, that's a decision he would have
made. He would have wanted to be there, and I'm certain that's why he was there."
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Jesse Reed
reedj@rogers.com
1-866-808-9066
(Toll free North America)
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ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
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Really nice story here Jess, thanks for sharing it.. and may God go with them all, every step, every breath, they do Gods work.they deserve His help, and it seems they are getting it...ranrad
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RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
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