Author
|
Topic: Afghanistan - 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment - Predeployment (Read 6006 times)
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
 Online
Gender: 
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Another interesting read, one highlighting the inevitable consequences to those nations which are carrying the burden. Americans and Brits in this instance.
Battle fatigue
A weary soldier in his 50s characterizes the stressed-out state of special forces
Jul 12, 2008 04:30 AM
Mitch Potter
EUROPE BUREAU
NAIROBI–He had a bad case of "travel face," a condition not uncommon when one is dealt an eight-hour stopover in Africa's busiest airport. Any airport, really.
American. Late-50something. Fretful. On his way home via Addis Ababa, and now Nairobi, from a place he wouldn't name. And bored beyond belief as we spent our second hour in an improbably long Kenya Airways lineup to collect boarding passes onward.
He seemed too fit for a businessman. Spy? Commando? Mercenary? We killed time talking travel, whereupon he revealed a more than passing familiarity with the telltale airports of Baghdad, Kabul and Kandahar.
"Special forces?" we ventured. A single nod. Affirmative.
He said his name was Jackson. I told him I was a Canadian reporter, but that didn't stop him from voluntarily blurting out a bleak assessment on the sheer weariness of his kind.
"Don't believe what they tell you about recruitment levels being fine. I retired after the second year in Iraq. Now I'm `unretired' – they talked an old guy like me into coming back. That's how badly they need bodies."
Jackson itemized the elite force-depletion factors in George W. Bush's flagging war on terror – disintegrating marriages, the heart-wrenching who-are-you stares from their children, the pull of high-end private security contractors like Blackwater, which offer "twice as much money or more for doing pretty much the same thing."
The memory of Jackson's unprovoked outburst was awakened this week by the publication of a British military survey showing almost half of the U.K.'s armed forces regularly think about quitting.
The unprecedented snapshot of British service morale cited the unsustainably difficult challenge of too few doing too much in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Though the balance of British forces has tilted toward the latter – U.K. troop levels in Afghanistan will reach 8,000 by year's end – plans to reduce the 4,000 that remain in southern Iraq are on hold.
British Tory MP Patrick Mercer, an ex-officer, was not surprised by what the 9,000 servicemen and women surveyed had to say about frequency of tours, levels of pay and quality of equipment and housing. It all added up to overstretched.
"I think the tempo of operations has produced such a level of stress on the families that it is no wonder so many are thinking of leaving," he said.
Back at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta airport, Jackson spoke about the uniquely severe impact on the estimated 52,000 Americans who work special ops. They fall under more than two dozen elite groupings, from the U.S. Army's Delta Force and Green Beret soldiers to navy SEALs and air force FASTs (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams).
What they have in common is an exponential tempo that began with the 2001 campaign in Afghanistan, only to then morph into the biggest U.S. special forces deployment ever with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Jackson spoke almost nostalgically of those early days in Afghanistan, when everything – and everyone – was fresh, the morality unconfusing. Comparing notes, we realized we were choking on the same dust at Kandahar Airfield six years and four months ago when the first Canadian combat boots hit the ground.
Back then, KAF looked like a Special Forces Olympics, acrawl with elite teams on loan from at least a dozen Western armies.
Jackson was amused to learn the Toronto Star was unceremoniously "unembedded" from the base for reporting countries that sent them.
Jackson rubbed shoulders more than a little with Canada's own JTF2 commandos and pronounced them "as good as ours." Which, in and of itself, is more than Ottawa will let Canadians know.
He last visited KAF three months ago, depressed that the biggest changes in southern Afghanistan are to be found at the base itself.
A mountain of gravel keeps down the dust, and on it, a tidy military city comes replete with Pizza Hut, Burger King and the ubiquitous Tim Hortons double-double.
Off the base, Afghanistan is "about the same as it ever was, give or take."
What worried Jackson more is what he described as the likely "shrinking footprint" of American military power in the years to come.
Not merely in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in places like Africa, where Jackson was busy with something he dared not tell.
"You would think when special forces recruitment drops away you can just grab the best candidates you can find in the army and just switch them over," he said.
"That's what Washington thinks. But they're wrong. It takes a full two years of training to make one of us, and most who try can't cut it," he said.
"And even the ones that do – they rank merely as an elite member with zero actual elite task experience, which is not as useful as it sounds. It doesn't replenish the requirements of what we're being asked to do."
It was inevitable presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama would come up in a conversation in the main air hub of his ancestral home. Jackson said he is entirely comfortable with the notion of the Illinois senator as his next commander-in-chief.
"Obama says all the right things about supporting soldiers, as does John McCain," said Jackson, referring to the presumptive Republican nominee for the White House.
"But on one crucial level, they both face the same choice: The reality of leading a military that can no longer afford to be everywhere it wants to be.
"That's the dilemma waiting for whoever becomes president."
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
Ultimate 2000+ Member
 Offline
Gender:
Posts: 2598
|
Hmmmm... this is that .. ultimate side needed for subccess for any military establishment, no matter the sizeand tasking..without safe , secure family backing, the great ball of togetherness unravels and the reported consequences occur. I hope all the commanders and gov heads are paying close attention to this, and woerking on ways to help theses soldiers and families keep it together..to me it is an IMMEDIATE NEED... to be fixed ASP.. like yesterday...and of course there are other facotors which affect recruitment...those are very much political in the U.S. for sure, likely other countries as well.. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED....i believe anyway.. what do all you oither brothers think about that??? ranrad
|
RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
War? What war? Bland words feed our indifference
Janice Kennedy
The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Beach sands, piney cottages, hammocks in whispering breezes -- with summer on all sides, why would anyone pay attention to the empty clichés and euphemisms of politicians and talking military heads?
Surely it's Canadians' seasonal obsession that explains our apparent indifference to the worsening mess in Afghanistan. That, or a kind of cultural numbing that has set in since the affairs of that sad country stopped being dramatic front-page news.
In recent days, we heard about the deaths of two more Canadian soldiers -- Cpl. Brendan Anthony Downey (non-combat-related and at a support base) and Pte. Colin William Wilmot -- wearily adding numbers 86 and 87 to the bleak tally. We listened dutifully to the dutiful clichés from commanding officers about fallen comrades, about hearts and prayers going out to families, about carrying on with the mission and staying for as long as it takes. We read of ramp ceremonies with, according to one report, "the usual skirl of bagpipes."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave us what we've grown used to, an excerpt from the Politicians' Big Book of Useful Platitudes: Pte. Wilmot's "commitment will long be remembered by Canadians and Afghans alike. We mourn the loss of this exceptional Canadian." For the prime minister, our military losses last November were also "exceptional Canadians." In the same circumstances a year earlier, "their loss" was "also Canada's loss."
Has the PM taken to just phoning it in? Has his government? Last Tuesday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay dismissed the most recent violence in Afghanistan -- the combat death of another Canadian, the increase in suicide bombings (including the Indian Embassy attack that left 41 dead and hundreds injured), the two U.S. air strikes that killed 40 civilians, including members of a wedding party -- MacKay dismissed it all as related to "an uptick in insurgency attacks."
An uptick? Could he really have said that?
No one took him to task for it, though, just as no one seemed overly offended by the prime minister's one-size-fits-all eulogies.
It must be home-front battle fatigue. How else to explain our casual new indifference, our unprotesting acceptance of these banalities and lack of curiosity about what they're hiding? It's as if the country has given up. All decisions have been made, so we're stuck in this mess till -- well, whenever.
For most Canadians, Afghanistan is yesterday's news -- a bit stale, always roughly the same (even the tragedies), good for an inside page or halfway through the nightly newscast. It goes without saying that "most Canadians" does not include the families, friends and colleagues of the 87 young people whose lives have been tragically wasted. But our politicians and political military types seem to believe that the rest of us can be placated with a pious bromide or two.
What will it take to make Canadians sit up and take notice again?
Maybe we should be talking about the hemorrhage of money, appealing to the conservatives and neo-conservatives who generally support Canada's combat role. Since such folks usually reserve a place of special honour in their pantheon of values for the almighty dollar, it might be worth stressing that this country's current war is gouging the economy by billions of dollars at a time when skyrocketing oil prices are about to make the cost of life as we know it insupportable.
As incomes grow progressively more inadequate, the militaristic Harper government trumpets its 20-year "Canada First" defence strategy, transforming Canada's respected peacekeeping identity into something more aggressive -- at a $30-billion cost. More immediately, we're spending $90 million on new grenade launchers -- or more than five times the annual cost of food moved by the Canadian Association of Food Banks, nearly 40 per cent of it destined for hungry children.
(Unprecedented military spending while ordinary citizens find it increasingly tougher to make ends meet? Harper and his buddy U.S. President George Bush really do have a lot in common, don't they?)
Maybe we should be talking about the pointlessness of what we're doing, the obvious past failures and the predictions of failure. Each minuscule step forward, it seems, is followed by 25 giant leaps back -- things like last month's Kandahar prison escape, which set loose nearly 400 Taliban militants. Or the international coalition's unsolved problem of opium-production, which richly finances both the Taliban resurgence and al-Qaeda's reorganization. In Helmand province last year alone, opium production jumped 45 per cent.
Or maybe we should start recognizing our global marginality, the fact that in Afghanistan, there's the United States, there's Britain -- and then there are "coalition forces," including Canada. Since we've already paid a disproportionately higher price than most of our allies (not that most non-Canadians have noticed), maybe it's time we start participating to the same extent as some of our European NATO friends.
Finally, there's the death toll -- more than 800 coalition soldiers since 2002 and nearly 700 Afghan civilians in the first half of this year alone. That includes countless children, surely nobody's enemies. If, instead of using antiseptic words like "casualty" and "uptick," we start imagining their small, battered humanity, maybe that will do it for us.
Much as we would like to, ignoring Afghanistan -- the blood, the hopelessness, the unforgivable blunders -- is not an option.
Whatever we're doing in that desperately sad country, it's not working.
No cliché, euphemism or creeping indifference is going to change that.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Police say 18 people killed in suicide attack in southern Afghanistan
By The Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Police say a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a police patrol in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 24 people, including 19 civilians and five poluice officers.
Provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat says the attack at a busy intersection in the southern province of Uruzgan also killed five police officers and wounded more than 30 other people.
He says the bombing also damaged or destroyed about nine shops in the area.
Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling cigarettes and other goods in the street, Himat says.
Afghan civilians have been victimized by a rash of bombings this month. About 55 civilians were killed in a massive bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday, while a government commission said this week that U.S. air strikes killed 47 civilians in Nangarhar on July 6.
More than 2,300 people - mostly militants - have died in insurgency related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Afghan tours will not be extended
Published: Monday, July 14, 2008
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - Canada's top soldier has promised troops he will not extend the length of their rotations in Afghanistan.
"Six months is enough due to the amount of risk they are assuming on a daily basis," said General Walter Natynczyk in Afghanistan last Wednesday, a week after being sworn in as Chief of Defence Staff.
"The fact is you want people to be fresh when they do this, you want them to have their wits about them when they do those kinds of missions," said Gen. Natynczyk, who visited troops in their forward operating bases.
His message came as the United States suffered its worst day yet in the Afghanistan conflict. Nine U. S. soldiers were killed in fighting that also claimed the lives of "dozens" of Taliban insurgents, a NATO official said yesterday.
Canadian journalists embedded with the military were not allowed to report on Gen. Natynczyk's visit until he had left the country last night.
Despite security precautions, many soldiers were aware of the visit, and news spread quickly about his promise to freeze their tours of duty.
"Six months is a good time for what we're doing," said Corporal Adam Stefaniec, a combat engineer from Edmonton. "We all have lives back home. If you have six months, you get a little bit of time off, spend some time with family. It makes sense."
While some combat soldiers have said they would not mind fighting beyond the six-month period, Gen. Natynczyk's decision will allay fears among soldiers and their families who worried that Canada could have followed the U. S. lead by extending combat rotations to nine months or even 12.
U. S. soldiers regularly serve up to 15 months in war zones, and many have had their rotations extended while overseas.
The length of combat tours is a sensitive issue in the Canadian military. Those who support a shorter rotation say it prevents battle fatigue; proponents backing a longer rotation say it would make life easier for military planners and put more Canadian "boots on the ground" by allowing for a longer overlap period when incoming troops are in country with their experienced colleagues.
Gen. Natynczyk posed for pictures and sat for informal chats with rank-and-file soldiers, trying to win the trust and support of troops involved in one of the most difficult and dangerous missions undertaken by the Canadian military.
He wanted to introduce himself personally to soldiers who had idolized his predecessor, General Rick Hillier, who played a large role in encouraging the federal government to commit the Canadian battlegroup to Kandahar in 2006.
Gen. Natynczyk also turned on the charm when meeting with the contingent of embedded reporters who were skeptical of the general's claims that the number of violent incidents has flatlined in Kandahar where Canadian troops are stationed.
"In Kandahar province, we're generally along the same lines we have been the past few years," he said. "It's interesting looking at the statistics; we're just a slight notch, indeed an insignificant notch, above where we were last year."
However, that "insignificant notch" includes the spectacularly successful attack by insurgents in June against Sarpoza prison in Kandahar City where the entire inmate population was freed, including 400 Taliban sympathizers.
In contrast to Gen. Natynczyk's optimism, the United States has expressed a grim opinion about the conflict, saying in a recent Pentagon report the Taliban have "coalesced into a resilient insurgency."
Yesterday, insurgents killed nine U. S. soldiers in an assault on an Afghan army and NATO outpost in the northeastern province of Kunar, making it one of the worst days for foreign troops casualties in the country since 2001.
Earlier, a suicide bomber in a bazaar killed 17 civilians, most of them children, and four police in the southern province of Uruzgan, police said.
The Taliban continue to fight in the violent districts west of Kandahar where many of Canada's 87 combat deaths have taken place.
Said Gen. Natynczyk: "The Taliban change their tactics. We do something, they look at it, they learn, they're clever. At the same time we must adapt to what they are doing. We can't underestimate the Taliban."
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Elsewhere in the land of dust...
U.S. outpost sees carnage TheStar.com - World - U.S. outpost sees carnage
RAHMATULLAH NAIKZAD/AP
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN–A multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote U.S. base killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 yesterday in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years.
The attack came the same day a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people, including 19 civilians, while U.S. coalition and Afghan soldiers killed 40 militants elsewhere in the south.
The assault on the American troops began around 4:30 a.m., in a dangerous region close to the Pakistan border, and lasted all day.
Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the northeastern province of Kunar, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
Nine U.S. troops were killed in the attack, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the troops' nationalities.
NATO confirmed nine of its soldiers were killed and 15 hurt. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded. Although no final assessment has been made, it is believed insurgents suffered heavy casualties during several hours of fighting, NATO said in a statement.
Lt.-Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, the top U.S. military spokesperson in Afghanistan, said she could not comment because the fight was ongoing.
The attack appeared to be the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American troops were killed – also in Kunar – when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
They were on their way to rescue a four-man team of navy SEALs caught in a militant ambush. Three SEALs were killed; the fourth was rescued days later by a farmer.
Yesterday's attack came during a period of rising violence in Afghanistan. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June. Last Monday, a suicide bomber attacked the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.
In two other incidents this month, an Afghan government commission found U.S. aircraft killed 47 civilians in a bombing in Nangarhar province, while a separate incident in Nuristan province is alleged by officials to have killed 22 civilians.
The high casualty tolls have prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross this week to ask all sides to show restraint and avoid civilian casualties. But violence continued yesterday.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing 24 people.
The bomb attack at a busy intersection of the Deh Rawood district killed five police officers and 19 civilians, wounding more than 30 others, said Juma Gul Himat, Uruzgan's police chief. Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling goods in the street, he said.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants executed two women in central Afghanistan late Saturday after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a U.S. base.
The women, dressed in blue burqas, were shot and killed just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan, said Sayed Ismal, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor. He called the two "innocent local people."
Taliban fighters told Associated Press Television News the women were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors at a U.S. base in Ghazni city.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a U.S. military spokesman, said he had not heard allegations of "anything close to that nature."
Meanwhile, at least 40 militants were killed following an attack on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces in Helmand province, the coalition said in a statement.
The militants attacked the combined forces near Sangin on Saturday from "multiple concealed and fortified positions," the coalition said. Thirty "enemy boats" and several small bridges have been destroyed on the Helmand River during two days of fighting, it said.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Barrelling to the finish
Kandahar lassos Stampede spirit
Graham Thomson
Edmonton Journal
Friday, July 11, 2008
Cathy Grant of Granton, Ont., races to the finish line in 18.09 seconds in Stampede rodeo barrel racing on Thursday. For rodeo results, see Page B5
CREDIT: Jenelle Schneider, Calgary Herald
Cathy Grant of Granton, Ont., races to the finish line in 18.09 seconds in Stampede rodeo barrel racing on Thursday. For rodeo results, see Page B5
Nobody wore a cowboy hat and there wasn't a horse in sight, but everyone who turned up for Calgary Stampede Days in Kandahar was carrying a real gun.
Canadian soldiers held a pancake breakfast at the Kandahar Airfield on Thursday to celebrate the Stampede, and used the occasion to informally thank American helicopter pilots for saving a Canadian convoy from a suicide bombing attack on July 2.
For a few moments Thursday morning, troops did their best to forget the lethal reality of Afghanistan and throw themselves a modest party.
"It's a little flavour of home," said Sgt. Christopher Tucker of the Calgary Highlanders, who said he didn't begrudge celebrating the Stampede on a dry base. "Stampede's a pretty big thing for anybody in Calgary. My liver is glad I'm not in Calgary right now -- it's taking a nice rest."
Pte. Phelycia Black, based out of Wainwright, thanked the Americans, who accepted the Canadian gesture -- along with platefuls of pancakes drenched in maple syrup.
"They saved our lives," said Black.
"It was pretty scary," said Black, who was driving one of Canada's new Mercedes-Benz armoured trucks on her first trip outside the wire when the incident occurred. "We were on a gravel road, so it was dusty. All we saw was a dark vehicle coming to our left."
Americans flying as lookouts above the convoy could see exactly what was about to happen and radioed a warning to the Canadians below, giving them a split second to veer away as the bomber blew himself up. The explosion killed the bomber and wounded three Afghan civilians. No Canadians were hurt.
"Seeing how it was my first time, I wasn't sure what to expect, but from now on that's all I'm going to be watching for," said Black.
Suicide attacks and roadside bombings have accounted for the majority of Canadian deaths in Afghanistan and have pressured the federal government into promising transport helicopters for the military. However, nothing is expected to be delivered to troops in Afghanistan until late this year or early 2009.
Some troops might grumble about the lack of helicopters, but they have nothing but praise for the new armoured trucks that look like 18-wheelers on steroids and come with a fridge in the cabin for their bottled water.
Black said the vehicle is so solidly armoured that the detonation of the suicide bomb seemed like little more than a "poof" even though the helicopter pilots described it as a huge fireball.
"In our new trucks you don't feel anything," said Black.
There wasn't a cowboy hat in the breakfast crowd Thursday, but that wasn't for lack of trying.
"We tried to get cowboy hats for a larger Calgary presence of the Stampede," said Capt. Peter Boyle, also with the Highlanders, "but they're lost somewhere between Calgary and the Kandahar Airfield. The joys of being halfway around the world I guess."
- - -
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Two Canadians slightly injured in Kandahar blast
Updated Thu. Jul. 17 2008 11:00 PM ET
The Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Two Canadian soldiers have suffered minor injuries after an explosion in Kandahar province.
The soldiers were participating in a routine patrol in Zhari district when an explosive device detonated near their armoured vehicle.
One of the soldiers was treated at the scene and immediately returned to duty.
The other was evacuated by air to the military hospital at Kandahar Airfield for observation and was reportedly in good condition.
The military said it was unclear whether the explosive device was a landmine or a roadside bomb.
Identities of the soldiers were not released.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Local soldier will be laid to rest today
Published Wednesday July 16th, 2008
Medic | Wilmot died July 5 while serving in Afghanistan
By MICHAEL STAPLES
A fallen Canadian soldier with strong connections to Fredericton will be laid to rest today following a military funeral service at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.
Pte. Colin William Wilmot, 24, who grew up in a military family in the Fredericton area, died July 5 from injuries suffered when an explosive device detonated near a dismounted security patrol in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province.
He was a medic with 1 Field Ambulance, based in Edmonton, Alta., and was part of The Second Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry battle group.
The funeral service is set for 10 a.m. at St. Luke's Chapel.
Wilmot will be buried later today at Forest Hill Cemetery in Fredericton.
His death brings the number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002 to 87.
Brent Wilson is the executive editor for the Journal of Conflict Studies at the Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society at the University of New Brunswick.
He said casualties are a tragic side effect of combat-related missions and that Canadians should brace themselves for more.
"Unfortunately, I think they will continue," Wilson said. "Whether it continues at the same rate is unknowable at this point."
Wilson said the Taliban threat in Kandahar province has been reduced by the presence of Canadian troops, but that doesn't mean related dangers to soldiers serving there have gone away.
Cam Ross, a former commander at CFB Gagetown, said increased Taliban activity during the summer often translates into a higher number of casualties for soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
But Ross, a retired major-general and the senior military adviser for Calgary-based EnCana Corp., said it's difficult to predict what the number of Canadian deaths will be leading up to 2011, the expiration date for Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
He said much depends on what can be done with Pakistan, because that's where the insurgents are coming from.
Ross said the only thing that's certain when it comes to Afghanistan is change won't happen quickly.
Ross said Golf Company soldiers of the CFB Gagetown-based Second Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (2RCR), preparing for a late August deployment to the central Asian country, will be heading into a dangerous situation.
About 100 members of Golf Company will be providing security for the ongoing work done by the Kandahar provincial reconstruction teams based in Kandahar City.
Ross said mission-related dangers exist with everything in Afghanistan, whether it's with the provincial reconstruction teams or at the forward operating bases.
"But, I would say that Canadian troops (going) to Afghanistan are the best-trained, best-led, best-equipped that we have had, arguably, ever," Ross said. "There is nothing more that we can do to prepare these soldiers to go in harm's way."
Wilmot's stepfather, Eric Craig, recently transferred from CFB Gagetown to CFB Petawawa in Ontario in preparation for deployment to Kandahar.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Outpost attack in Afghanistan shows major boost in militant strength
Tue Jul 15, 4:00 AM
A deadly attack on a remote NATO outpost in the eastern province of Kunar is being viewed as a serious escalation in the fighting between the insurgents and the international forces stationed in Afghanistan – and a possible shift in the insurgents' tactical capability. The high casualties sustained by international forces in recent attacks have also increased the prospects that international troops could launch cross-border strikes into Pakistan with increasing frequency.
In contrast to their traditional hit-and-run tactics and reliance on use of explosives, bombs, and suicide attacks, militants directly engaged soldiers at the outpost, in the village of Wanat, in a style that had not been seen for more than a year. A wave of insurgents attacked the outpost from multiple sides and some were able to get inside, killing nine US troops and wounding 15. The attack was the worst for US troops since June 2005, when 16 Americans were killed after their helicopter was shot down.
"The attack on Sunday was a carefully planned one, with upward of 200 insurgents, to give it weight of force," Capt. Michael Finney, acting spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, said in an interview. Captain Finney said the attack was ultimately repelled with on-the-ground fighting as well as air power.
Superior planning
But the battle, analysts say, exhibited the capacity of the insurgents, beginning early in the morning and continuing throughout the day with militants firing machine guns, rocket -propelled grenades, and mortars.
Haroun Mir, the deputy director for Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies, said the attack's superior planning was clear evidence of the presence of Al Qaeda troops in the area. Recent incidents have pointed to an increased capability of the insurgents, marked first by a major jailbreak in Kandahar in June and the influx of Taliban fighters into Kandahar Province in the south.
Analysts have also noted activity of the insurgent group Hezb-i Islami and the Taliban in Nuristan Province, which neighbors Kunar Province.
Mr. Mir said that "the recent attacks show that the Al Qaeda is involved in the planning and execution of the attacks. Until now the Taliban have been avoiding direct confrontation and after 2006 they were using IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and bombs. Now for the first time they are engaging directly. Once the bodies of the insurgents are recovered from the area I am sure Pakistani and Arab fighters will be found among them."
Mir argues that the sudden shift of tactics and the apparent rapid enhancement in the sophistication of the attacks by insurgents point to an external capability. The attack on Benazir Bhutto and the Serena Hotel in Kabul were indicative of better planning and coordination that could not have come from the Taliban alone, he argues.
"They are traditional fighters," he says. "Not thinkers. Recent attacks have also revealed the involvement of police and this is not the Taliban style at all."
Recent reports have indicated increased activity of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the bordering regions of Pakistan. Last week saw the death of a top commander of Al Qaeda in Khost Province in southern Afghanistan. Abu al Hassan al Saeedi was reportedly a Yemeni leader who was killed in fighting with American forces, according to the local news agency Pajhwok. Killed alongside him was Umer Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, considered one of the top militant leaders in Afghanistan.
Reports emanating from Pakistan also note the emergence of the involvement of Al Qaeda. Regional expert Kathy Gannon reported from Pakistan on Sunday that a conclave of militant and terrorist groups, held in Rawalpindi in June, had agreed to focus on Afghanistan.
The conclave included groups with a history of fighting in Kashmir against the Indian government such as Hezb ul Mujahideen, Jaish-e Muhammed, and Lashkar-i Tayyaba, the last two with links to Al Qaeda. Rawalpindi is where the Pakistani Army is headquartered.
Pakistan's involvement in fueling terror tactics across the border, or at the very least tolerating the use of its territory for the launch of these tactics, is increasing tensions between the international community and the Pakistan government.
"This is our biggest achievement: We have finally convinced the international community of the real role of Pakistan, especially its military and intelligence agency," an Afghan government spokesman said on condition of anonymity. International military forces stationed in Afghanistan on the Pakistan border have increasingly resorted to retaliatory strikes across the border.
Strong rhetoric by Afghanistan
The strong rhetoric of President Hamid Karzai last month regarding his right to hot pursuit as well as the unannounced visit to Islamabad by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen are being viewed as evidence that there will be more cross-border actions by international forces into Pakistani territory.
The increasing fears of cross-border strikes prompted Pakistan's new prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gillani, to remark that no country would be allowed to launch strikes in Pakistan.
Diplomatic sources here suggest that while the issue of cross-border pursuit could be a gray area in international law, Afghanistan's use of "the right to self-defense" would be used as a justification should the necessity of entering Pakistani territory become a reality.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 2598
|
Hmmmmmm... sounds like we need a more concentrated effort to kick those butts a bit harder..heheheh...or?? more boots on the ground... ranrad
|
RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
Online
Gender:
Posts: 3814
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
|
Another sad day, lads, another valiant soldier lost. A Patricia this time, night patrol, IED. It should be noted Cpl Hayward volunteered for his second tour...
Pro Patria
Bomb kills Canadian soldier in Afghanistan
July 19, 2008
Alexander Panetta
THE CANADIAN PRESS
KANDAHAR–A Canadian soldier has been killed by roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
Cpl. James Hayward Arnal was struck by an explosion late Friday during a night patrol in Panjwaii district near Kandahar city.
Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan lauded him as a fearless fighter who had left a lucrative career in information technology to join the army.
"Clearly, he was a dedicated soldier with a very promising career ahead of him," said Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, Canada's commander in Afghanistan.
Arnal, based out of CFB Shilo, Man., was the 88th Canadian soldier killed in the Afghan mission, and the first in two weeks.
After paying tribute to his corporal, Thompson appeared to address suggestions the Canadian government and military have been sugar-coating the difficult realities of the Afghan mission.
He bluntly described the situation as difficult.
"Of course, soldiers are also not afraid to talk about the challenges faced here in Afghanistan," Thompson said.
"Let there be no doubt – we do have our work cut out for us."
"This insurgency is not going to be defeated in the short term, which is why our focus is on winning the trust of the Afghan people, and building up local government and security institutions."
He said the military is determined to carry on with the mission – and is convinced it will succeed.
Another Canadian soldier sustained injuries in the blast but was said to be in good condition and was expected to return to duty.
Suicide attacks, roadside bombs and coalition casualties have significantly increased in each of the last three years.
But the number of Afghan children going to school and the national economy has also been growing.
In a reminder of the security risk Saturday, a suicide bomber blew himself up just several hundred metres away from the main coalition base in Kandahar.
The bomber was spotted by an Afghan policeman on the main road to Kandahar Airfield, tried running away, and detonated himself with nobody close by.
One policeman and one young boy were injured, while the bomber's body was ripped to pieces by the force of the blast.
|
1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
|
|
|
Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
| | | |
Logged