HEART TUGS . . . At the Crossroads of Humanity

157th Canadian soldier died today in Afghanistan

2011-06-26T22:35:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News (Global TV) June 26, 2011

Master Corporal Francis Roy of Rimouski, Que. and the Canadian Special Operations Regiment was named Sunday as the 157th Canadian soldier to have died in Afghanistan.

Photo Credit: Handout, Combat Camera/DND

With only ten days to go before the official end of Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan, an unnamed...
Canadian soldier dies in non-combat incident

Officials grappled with torture allegations

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Master Cpl. Francis Roy of Rimouski, Que. and the Canadian Special Operations Regiment was named Sunday as the 157th Canadian soldier to have died in Afghanistan.

With only 10 days left before the official end of Canada's five-year combat mission in southern Afghanistan, Roy, who was a transport specialist and former member of the Royal 22e Regiment, died Saturday morning of what were described as a "non-combat related wounds."

However, Roy's name was not released until Sunday by Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, the Task Force Kandahar commander, because of a request from Roy's family to delay the announcement.

In announcing Roy's death and extending condolences to his family, Milner said: "We will maintain our resolve and remain committed to the mission during the final days."

Roy, 32, a logistician specializing in transport movements, volunteered to join CSOR in 2007. He was described by Milner as an avid fisherman and runner as well as having a passion for old cars.

Roy died at a forward base in Kandahar City where he was a transport specialist for special forces commandos who carry out secret missions in support of Canadian and other coalition and Afghan forces. On a previous overseas tour in 2009, Roy served at Camp Mirage, Canada's former staging base in Dubai.

Many of Canada's fighting units have already returned to Canada or are back at Kandahar Airfield preparing to do so. They are leaving in the next few weeks as Canada transitions to a training mission in the north of the country.

Padre Grahame Thompson of Toronto refused to speculate about the incident.

"I don't know what any of the circumstances are," he said. "That is not my forte. My forte is to support the men and women of the Canadian Forces who are here doing a tremendous job. I'm not an investigator. I am a chaplain. I am going to talk to you about the living. The living have an important job to do."

About 15,000 members of the armed forces have served tours in Afghanistan since the current combat mission started in March 2006. Twenty of the 157 Canadians to have died while serving as part of Task Force Kandahar lost their lives in instances that have not involved enemy action.

The military does not publish such statistics, but as many as six Canadian soldiers, including two officers, who have died in Afghanistan, may have committed suicide. The suicide rate for those serving in the Canadian military is lower than the general population, a recent study found.

Several of the others who were not combat casualties died when the armoured vehicles they were driving or the helicopters they were flying were in accidents. Three others died as a result of military accidents involving gunfire or explosives and one soldier was killed when he was shot by a fellow soldier during an apparent gun game that went badly wrong.

CSOR, the acronym that it goes by in the military, is described as "a robust and adaptable weapon," combining weapons, firepower and special skills, according to the unit's website. One of four units in the Canadian Special Forces Operations Command, it was established in 2006 at Petawawa, Ont. Many of its troops have served multiple tours in Afghanistan.

Master Cpl. Anthony Klumpenhouwer, of Listowel, Ont., was the only other member of Canadian Special Forces Operations Command to die in Afghanistan. He fell from a tower on April 18, 2007.

The senior ranking of six padres attached to Task Force Kandahar, with 20 years of military service, Thompson said "the members' closest friends are the ones that the chaplains are most concerned about. There is always a safe place in the chaplain's office if they want to talk."

Until now nobody had, he said, but he remarked that it was still very early in the grieving process.

Read it on Global News: Quebec soldier had a passion for fishing, old cars

Canadian soldier, Cpl. Yannick Scherrer, 24, killed in Afghanistan

2011-03-28T00:21:00.003-04:00

It is with deep regret and sorrow that I post this incoming news 27 minutes ago. Remember to watch for the schedule when he will be passing down the Highway Of Heroes. Note the reporter's remark on the "scores of injured" also suffered in this treacherous area by Canadian troops. BONNIE

By Tara Brautigam, The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A Canadian soldier has been killed in Kandahar after an improvised explosive device detonated in a hardscrabble village that has been bloodied grounds for the military.

Cpl. Yannick Scherrer was on a foot patrol Sunday when he was killed by an IED blast near Nakhonay, southwest of Kandahar city.

The 24-year-old native of Montreal was on a security patrol with the Afghan National Army at the time of his death. The member of the 1st Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment was on his first tour in the country.

"Our thoughts and deepest condolences go out to Cpl. Scherrer's family, and to the soldiers and friends who served alongside him," Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan, said Monday at Kandahar Airfield.

"Canadians can be proud of the progress our soldiers have accomplished for the people of Kandahar province in Afghanistan. More work remains to be done.

"We will honour Yannick's sacrifice by maintaining our resolve and continuing the fight to make Afghanistan a safer and self-sustaining country."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his condolences to the soldier's friends and family.

"The relentless commitment of Cpl. Scherrer and other brave Canadians in Afghanistan is a source of pride to all Canadians," Harper said in a statement.

"We will forever be grateful for the sacrifice made by Cpl. Scherrer."

Nakhonay is a battle-scarred village of about 1,000 people. It has been the focus of intense counterinsurgency efforts by Canada's battle group in the Panjwaii district over the last year.

Last month, Milner joined his troops in a patrol of the village during Operation Hamaghe Shay, a mission that yielded caches of weapons and IED components on a daily and nightly basis ahead of the summer fighting season.

At the time, Milner offered a sobering assessment of the public mood in Nakhonay.

"I think they are sitting on the fence right now and they're waiting to see who is more capable, who is winning," Milner said.

"They've been intimidated for so long. Right now is that waiting period to understand what the situation is going to be like during fighting season."

Much blood has been shed in Nakhonay. In the last year here, IEDs killed at least five of the 17 Canadians who died in Afghanistan. Scores more have been injured.

"Nakhonay is a difficult nut to crack," Maj. Frank Dufault, the deputy commander of Canada's battle group in Afghanistan, said recently.

Scherrer's death shatters a period of relative calm for Canadian troops in Kandahar.

It is the first Canadian fatality in Afghanistan since Dec. 18, when Cpl. Steve Martin died from an IED during a foot patrol, also in Panjwaii.

It comes as Canada prepares to wind down combat operations in Kandahar in July and take on a training role that would focus on security, medical and literacy skills.

The latest death brings to 155 the total number of Canadian military members who have died as part of the Afghan mission since it began in 2002.

Two aid workers, a diplomat and a journalist have also been killed in the war-torn country.

Monsters in the Dark -- a poem by one of our fallen heroes

2011-01-08T23:01:00.000-05:00

IN TRIBUTE

Monsters in the Dark

I know that they are out there
I will not be ignorant any more
Pulling the blanket over my head
Will not keep them from coming ashore
Instead I choose to confront them
As afraid as I might be
Because if I don't stop the monsters
Our children can never be free.

Master Corporal Jeffrey Scott Walsh wrote this
before he was killed in Afghanistan, August 9, 2006.

His father, Benjamin Morris Walsh, proudly posted this
poster of his son's work on Facebook
January 8, 2011.

Newest casualty a Vandoo killed by IED blast on foot patrol

2010-12-19T16:13:00.002-05:00

Reported by Murray Brewster, the Canadian Free Press -- Saturday, December 18, 2010 local time

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A Canadian soldier is dead following a bomb blast in the vicinity of a major road construction project that NATO is pushing in a volatile district of Kandahar.

Cpl. Steve Martin, 24, from 3rd Battalion Royal 22e Regiment, was killed by an improvised explosive device, or IED, while on foot patrol early Saturday afternoon, local time. He died two days before his 25th birthday. Martin was serving with Parachute Company of the 1st Battalion Royal 22e Regiment battle group, based at CFB Valcartier, Quebec. His company deployed to the volatile Panjwaii district last month.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the fallen soldier during this difficult time," said Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. "We will not forget the sacrifice of this soldier as we continue to bring security and hope to the people of Kandahar province."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a written statement on behalf of all Canadians extending his deepest sympathies to Martin’s family and friends. "Cpl. Martin was a brave Canadian who made the ultimate sacrifice while proudly serving his country,” the statement said. "Thanks to Canadian Forces members like him, we continue to make real progress in Afghanistan, rebuilding the country and contributing to the peace and security of its people.”

Governor General David Johnston also issued a statement offering his deepest sympathies to Cpl. Martin’s loved ones. "Cpl. Martin displayed an admirable sense of duty to Canada, bringing great pride to his unit and to the Forces as a whole,” he wrote.

Johnston added that with Martin’s death he now feels the weight of his new responsibilities as commander-in-chief of Canada’s Armed Forces.

Martin was on patrol near a road that NATO forces are carving in the horn of Panjwaii, an area that until recently was dominated by the Taliban and used as a staging point for attacks towards the provincial capital. Although most insurgent fighters fled the area during an initial American assault, some bomb-laying cells have continued to operate in the region as tanks and graders lay down the gravel thoroughfare. There have been daily reports of the Taliban trying to sprinkle the path ahead of the troops with bombs. Saturday's attack shattered a period of relative calm in the troubled Panjwaii district, where most of Canada's troops are based.

Anecdotally, it is known that at least three soldiers have been wounded since the Valcartier, Que. based Van Doo battle group deployed. The military would not say if anyone else was wounded in the bombing that claimed Martin's life.

To date, 154 Canadian soldiers have died as a result of the Afghan mission. The figure includes combat deaths, suicides and one death by natural causes.

The Taliban vowed to keep up a winter campaign against NATO forces in southern Afghanistan and last month issued a rare appeal for funds.

Canadian officer's death makes Afghan toll 153 since 2002

2010-11-26T12:22:00.001-05:00

Reprinted from CBC News online, Friday, November 26, 2010

The Canadian Forces announced Friday that Capt. Frank Cecil Paul, who died in Canada last February, is being considered as a casualty of the Afghanistan mission.

"Although his death came suddenly while on leave from his deployment in Afghanistan, he was still on duty and considered part of the mission, and therefore his death is no less important than any other CF member who served and died while in Afghanistan,” said Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of the defence staff, in a release.

Paul, who was from Badger, N.L., died in an Ottawa hospital on Feb. 10 while on leave from Kandahar, where he had been the adjutant for the health services support unit of Joint Task Force Afghanistan. He was 53.

Natynczyk said the decision to add Paul's name to the list of military casualties sustained in the Afghan mission came "following a review of the Canadian Forces' casualty policy." The military gave no details on Paul's death other than to say it was a result of "natural causes" following a sudden illness.

Paul was a member of 28 Field Ambulance in Ottawa. The 35-year veteran of the military leaves a wife and two children.

"All Canadians can be proud of the commitment shown by our Canadian Forces members," said Gov. Gen. David Johnston in a statement expressing his condolences to the family. "Their steadfast dedication is to be extolled, as every man and woman taking part in this mission is doing so with the utmost professionalism and dedication to duty."

A minute of silence will be observed at the Defence Department and Canadian Forces facilities in the National Capital Region on Friday, the military said. Paul's family has been presented with the Memorial Cross. His death raises the toll of Canadian troops from the Afghan mission to 153 since 2002.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/11/26/afghan-death-cecil-paul.html#socialcomments#ixzz16PSoPgPv

Read Bonnie Toews

2010-10-03T13:04:00.000-04:00

HEART TUGS . . . At the Crossroads of Humanity: Israel is the West's Vanguard against global terrorism

Israel is the West's Vanguard against global terrorism

2010-10-03T13:00:00.000-04:00

As the war in Afghanistan continues and our troops carry on battling archaic systems bent on submerging our world back into the Dark Ages, we need to be reminded of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahy's speech to the UN General Assembly, September 24, 2009. I have one exception to his plea, however: that if Churchill and Roosevelt were brought forward to account for the travesties they ordered against civilians while battling the Third Reich and the Japanese empire, it would be a miscarriage of justice. In their case, justice served the righteousness of the victors but it did not lessen the impact of the crimes against the innocence of their victims.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.

Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews.

Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler?s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie?

And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father?s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state.

What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong.

History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But, if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.

The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen, the jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing ? absolutely nothing ? from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead, we got an Iranian-backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.

We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Delegates of the United Nations, will you accept this farce?

Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.

When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us -- my people, my country -- of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen, all of Israel wants peace.

Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples ? a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it.We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.

We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity. But, we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong."

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachibility of mankind" is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

Another suicide attributed to Mefloquine. Will someone please listen?

2010-09-17T12:08:00.002-04:00

Adam Kuligowski says his son and soldiers in his unit were never told about the side effects of the antimalaria drug, Mefloquine. It was issued to Adam and troops like Aspirin in a doggie bag as they boarded the plane to Afghanistan. All of them were told they would be punished if they neglected to take the prescription. U.S. Army NCOs were not told about adverse effects of Mefloquine so they didn't recognize clear signs of trouble prior to his suicide. Father says no one is listening and whole companies of troops are still being issued to Mefloquine as they are deployed to Afghanistan now.
See father's video in press release.

Canadian soldier succumbs to wounds eight days after IED attack

2010-08-31T01:37:00.001-04:00

Excerpts from Global News by Brian Hutchinson

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - A Canadian soldier wounded eight days ago while conducting a foot patrol in dangerous Panjwaii district died Monday in a German hospital.

Cpl. Brian Pinksen, a Newfoundland native, was walking a short distance between two Canadian combat outposts on Aug. 22 in the village of Nakhonay, 18 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City, when an improvised explosive device planted by insurgents was detonated, wounding him and one of his fellow servicemen.

Both soldiers were treated at the scene before being airlifted to Kandahar Airfield's Role 3 Multi-National Medical Facility. They were flown to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre hospital in Germany three days later. The second soldier is recovering.

Pinksen was from the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, based in Corner Brook, N.L., and served with the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group.

A Canadian Forces official said there will be a ramp ceremony in Germany to honour Pinksen prior to his repatriation to Canada. He is the 152nd Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002, and at least the sixth to die from injuries sustained in or around Nakhonay since 2009.

In an interview in February 2009, before he headed out to train at Fort Pickett, a U.S. army National Guard base in Virginia, Pinksen told the Corner Brook Western Star he was looking forward to getting to Afghanistan in 2010. "I love it," Pinksen said of military life. "I'm so glad I joined. I did (basic military qualification) while I was in school. I'm glad I did it. I have no regrets."

Read it on Global News: Newfoundland soldier injured in IED blast dies of injuries

Another IED kills Canadian soldier

2010-07-22T06:48:00.002-04:00

Source: Article by Jasmeet Sidhu, The Toronto Star
Again, an IED has stolen the life of Toronto-born Sapper Brian Collier, 24, shown here in a Facebook photo he posted himself. Ironically, he had already survived wounds suffered from an IED blast earlier in his tour.

He is the 151st Canadian soldier to die in the Afghan mission since it began in 2002. Collier was leaving his vehicle in Nakhonay southwest of Kandahar city, when he was killed by the roadside bomb.

A member of 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based at CFB Edmonton, Collier was serving in Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group.

Born in Toronto and raised in Bradford, Ontario, Collier graduated from Bradford High School and joined the military about three years ago. He was fascinated by the sense of physical challenge, camaraderie and family that the Canadian military represented. Known as an adventurous man who loved sports including skydiving, white water rafting, snowboarding and hockey, Collier, the eldest brother to three sisters, was from a tight-knit family and, with them, always ended his conversations with, "I love you."

June deadliest month for American troops in Afghanistan as six more are killed yesterday

2010-07-15T18:38:00.001-04:00

Last month, 60 American troopers were killed. The numbers this month continue to climb, and yesterday, six more American service people were killed near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Luiz Martinez for ABC News further reports the staggering number of wounded the Americans have suffered in Afghanstan during the past two years.

In 2009, the total reached 2,139, a three-fold increase over the previous year.
In the first six months of 2010, four times as many American service members were wounded as were wounded in the same time frame a year ago: that is 1,922 American service members have been wounded in 2010 compared to 485 wounded through the same time period last year.

Canadians sympathize with our American friends at the same time as we offer support for all our coalition troops fighting in Afghanistan in a war that doubles the total number of years the Allies fought World War II. That war was won from the air. Then, the Allies levelled the major cities of Germany with no consideration for civilians on the ground. With today's sensitivities about civilian colateral damage, carpet bombing is shunned, and boots on the ground are handed the task of beating the Taliban. Realistically, can we expect our forces to do the job they're expected to do?

Coalition chief commanders in theatre have warned the folks back home to expect a much deadlier summer of fighting in southern Afghanistan as the Taliban's forces mount in number at the same time as they lay increasing and more sophisticated roadside bombs. No road and no path is safe for anyone to walk or ride, whether NATO troops or local villagers.

Once, the goal was to destroy all Al Qaeda bases, so they would have no place left to launch their jihads against the West. When that didn't succeed, NATO's goal switched to rid the Afghans of the Taliban bullies who robbed them of their independence and their ability to develop an economy that can bring the Afghan people into a modern way of life, such as Viet Nam now enjoys. By making the Afghan people our friends, we can leave it to them to refuse support of Al Qaeda and to keep these terrorists and their training camps out of Afghanistan. That's the gist for winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans.

After ten years in Afghanistan, can we say this is a realistic goal for NATO troops to pursue? Right now, it doesn't look like it.

Military still trying to suppress the suicidal and psychotic effects of the antimalaria drug mefloquine (Larium)

2010-07-12T19:43:00.002-04:00

This story published in 2004 by the United Press International discloses the U.S. military's refusal to acknowledge that the antimalaria drug they commissioned a pharmaceutical company develop, in 1988, to prevent troops deployed on tropical missions from dying from malaria does indeed produce a nightmare of horrendous consequences. In light of today's scientific findings of what this drug does to the mind of those who are vulnerable to its chemical damage, our troops, and I mean all those coalition forces sent into the war on terrorism, deserve our best care and support, not more exposure to callous abuse of their rights. As far as I am concerned, governments that sanction drugs and weapons that cause colateral damage among their own forces are nothing short of war criminals themselves. After growing evidence and studies reported on this virulent drug, I'm sorry to report that in 2010 Mefloquine or Larium is still issued to our troops. How many lives have to be shattered before the military takes responsibility for its decisions and actions?

Warning: According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration warnings, Lariam (or mefloquine), an anti-malaria drug invented by the U.S. Army, is associated with a family of drugs with known mental side effects, specifically quinolone. Lariam can cross the "blood-brain barrier" and dissolve in the fatty tissue of the brain. The FDA says Lariam can cause suicidal thinking, aggression, delusions and psychosis. The FDA also says that, for some people, the side effects have been reported to last long after taking the drug and their reaction becomes dangerous if they drink alcohol during that period as well.

Might I remind every trooper that this story could be about you because none of you know whether you are vulnerable or not until you have taken the mefloquine treatment to prevent you from dying of the most virulent form of malaria. The risk of dying from malaria may be preferrable to the side effects this treatment causes. Read and be forewarned. You have the right to refuse to take mefloquine or Larium as it is also called.

Soldier's suicide traced to antimalaria drug

What is happening to our top commanders?

2010-07-09T22:21:00.001-04:00

We can no longer turn a blind eye. Something is seriously wrong. In just six months, our rising military stars have fallen on their swords and killed hard-earned careers. Why?

We have the top dog of top dogs, a highly decorated and respected commander-in-chief of American, Canadian and other NATO forces in Afghanistan getting drunk and trashing the president of the United States. U.S. General Stanley McChrystal is relieved and recalled home in disgrace.

In Canada, the most respected military commander of the largest and busiest air base is accused of being a serial killer and rapist after he's connected to the murders of two women, one under his command. Col. Russ Williams awaits trial. More than once he has required suicide watch.

The commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, selected because of his tactical brilliance, is stripped of his command and sent home in disgrace because of an "inappropriate relationship." Before this happened, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard was on a fast track to one day becoming the chief of staff for all Canadian forces.

And now we learn Canada has relieved its senior ranking commander in Haiti of command. Col. Bernard Ouellette, who also doubles as the chief of staff for the UN's Haiti rescue mission following the earthquake that devastated the Caribbean country, faces allegations of an "inappropriate relationship" and an investigation on his return home, BUT he's also the same commander who was highly praised for his cool handling of Canada's relief effort under almost impossible conditions to bring aid to the Haitian people and children when they so desperately needed it.

If the morale of the commanders is self-destructing, what can we say about the troops depending on them for leadership?

Paul Watson, a Pulitzer-winning war correspondent for The Toronto Star, is presently embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan and he reports it's the boots on the ground looking out for each other that sustain the troops' morale and determination to get the job done right. He writes: "During an especially tough spate of attacks last month, soldiers at one of the company's most exposed bases say their commander offered to transfer any soldier who wanted to leave for a safer place. None stepped forward. All wanted to stay in the fight."

Watson is finding that the solidarity amongst troops is indivisible. He probes the heart and soul of each soldier and he can't find a break in their commitment to each other. He sites the example of Sgt. Jeff Veinot, on his third overseas tour starting in Bosnia in 2003. He was part of Operation Medusa, when Canadian Forces first battled large groups of well dug-in Taliban in the Kandahar province. He explains: "His [Veinot's] strongest loyalty is not to an idea or a cause, but to the men and women who may go home in a box because he [the sergeant] has had a bad day at work."

Watson quotes Veinot: "It's not about the pay cheques. It's not about saving Afghanistan or doing what the politicians think. It's about making sure that the guys, the sappers and the corporals below us are the guys that get to go and have as safe a trip as they can over here."

And here's another aspect of the soldier serving under war conditions that civilians fail to understand and cannot empathize with: the bonding of facing and overcoming danger together, every day. Watson captures this spiritual hold when he questions a corporal on leave back home who tells him, "the only thing harder than being Afghanistan is being somewhere else when your buddies are here."

This buddy system is a soldier's safety valve.

What safety valve to commanders have?

Leadership by definition is isolated and lonely. Field commanders make the toughest decisions of life and death, whatever the rules of engagement or the purpose of the mission, from peacekeeping to actual battleground, and they have to live with them alone. They write the heartache letters home to the families of the fallen. We put our best and most innovative leaders in the hottest pressure cookers and wonder why they implode. How stupid is that? Instead of sending them home in disgrace because they snapped under unrelenting pressure, isn't it time we showed them the compassion and understanding they have earned and wholly deserve for all the things they did right to make us proud to be Canadians or Americans, whichever our stripe?

It's not enough to say something is wrong. It's time to find out why.

IED Blast kills two Canadian medics near Kandahar

2010-06-27T21:48:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht and Pte. Andrew Miller, both medics from CFB Petawawa, were responding to a report of a mine found in the doorway of a home when their vehicle detonated an IED, the military said. The blast occurred about 20 kilometres southwest of the city of Kandahar.

They were attached to the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group. A third soldier was taken to a hospital on Kandahar Airfield and was in stable condition.

Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, commander of Task Force Kandahar, acknowledged that the medical personnel were likely targeted when they rushed to help the Afghan family. "Medical technicians are indispensable to the work being done by Canadian and Afghan soldiers. They participate in every Canadian Forces patrol and operation," Vance said.

Vance said Giesebrecht was born in Wallaceburg, Ont., and was a member of 1 Canadian Field Hospital, based at CFB Petawawa in the Ottawa Valley. He said she was married and a fit, dedicated and fun-loving medical technician serving her second tour in Afghanistan. "She was a mentor and an inspiration for her fellow medical technicians. Kristal loved life to the fullest. She was a wonderful friend, always opening her heart to everyone in need," said Vance. "Kristal prided herself on her health and fitness, although she always felt the solution to any problem could be found in a box of chocolates."

Miller was born in Sudbury, Ont., a member of 2 Field Ambulance, based at CFB Petawawa. He was serving on his first overseas deployment. Vance said Miller will be remembered as someone who would give his fellow soldiers the shirt off his back and was always the first to volunteer. "Andrew was very confident in both his soldier and clinical skills. He wanted nothing more than to be part of the Health Services Unit for ROTO 9, in Afghanistan, so that he could put his skills to the test," he said. "Called Caillou by his friends, everyone acknowledged the resemblance (to the children's cartoon character) as soon as they met him."

Giesebrecht is the third Canadian woman killed in a combat situation since Canada deployed troops to Afghanistan in early 2002.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/06/26/afghanistan-soldier-dead.html#ixzz0s6kgP4EN

There's more behind the McCrystal gaff than meets the eye

2010-06-23T11:58:00.002-04:00

The military announced six more NATO deaths Wednesday — three of them Americans. The three other service members were not identified by nationality, but NATO said all died in the south — two in a bomb attack and one in a firefight. That makes 73 international forces killed so far this month. Forty-four of them were Americans.

In the midst of this increasing bloodbath of NATO troops, including those of our own Canadian troops, is the "flap" over Afghanistan war commander Brig. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's disparaging remarks in the Rolling Stone magazine. Discredit of the U.S. commander-in-chief shortly after Canada's withdrawal of its own battle commander, Brig. Gen. Daniel Ménard, comes as NATO and Afghan forces are ramping up security in and around the key southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.

Two men with stunning careers are suddenly disgraced. Does this make sense? If top leaders become demoralized enough to throw their hard-earned careers away by letting loose and behaving irresponsibly, what does that tell us? For they know far more than we do about what is really going on in Afghanistan.

Don't you find it a little scary that the first person who defends McCrystal is Waheed Omar, the spokesperson for Afghan President Hamid Karzai?

"The president believes that we are in a very sensitive juncture in the partnership, in the war on terror and in the process of bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan, and any gap in this process will not be helpful," Omar told reporters.

"We hope there is not a change of leadership of the international forces here in Afghanistan and that we continue to partner with Gen. McChrystal."

And Karzai's younger brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, whom Canadian private security officials accuse of corruption and collusion with the Taliban, gave McChrystal a ringing endorsement, telling reporters in Kandahar that McChrystal's leadership would be sorely missed. "The people trust him and we trust him. If we lose this important person, I don't think that this operation will work in a positive way."

Meanwhile -- get this -- Taliban spokesman Zabeehullah Mujahid said McChrystal should resign because his strategy had "clearly failed."

"The problems between American leaders over Afghan issues very clearly show that the policy and the strategy of America has failed," he said. "They cannot win this war because the Afghan nation is united and they are committed to defeating American forces in Afghanistan."

Feels like smoke and mirrors, folks. If the Taliban want McCrystal to go, then it implies the White House should consider leaving him in place because the Taliban fear his leadership and influence. On the other hand, the Afghan leaders want him to stay, but his credibility as a leader of influence with the U.S. government is weakened. How does that benefit Karzai and gang?

Both the Canadian and American generals have cared deeply about their troops. Their integrity has made them stand out. It's why their troops have rallied so strongly under their command. Could it be that both men can no longer shoulder the corrupt messes their policital commander-in-chiefs have created for them? That the sacrifices exacted are not worth their integrity to support? That the situation here is too similar to Viet Nam where the drug trade escalated and many troops sent home were already drug addicts? That they know they have been thrust into a war the West cannot win?

President Obama and Brig. Gen. McCrystal have already spoken today, and the result of that conversation will be released shortly. My bet is on McCrystal resigning, opting for the relief that comes from conflict between his love for his troops and his disillusionment with his country.

Blast kills Canadian soldier on fourth tour in Afghanistan

2010-06-21T23:09:00.002-04:00

Excerpts from The Canadian Press by Bill Graveland

Sgt. James Patrick MacNeil, 28, of Glace Bay, N.S., was killed by an improvised explosive device Monday morning near the village of Nakhonay after he had dismounted from his armoured vehicle. Nakhonay is in the Panjwaii district, which is known as the birthplace of the Taliban. It has been a bloody battleground for Canadian troops since they arrived in Kandahar province in strength four years ago.

A proud "Cape Bretoner," MacNeil was with 2 Combat Engineer Regiment based at CFB Petawawa and was known for his good sense of humour. According to his men, he was a great person to work for. McNeil was blessed with a "permanent smile and eyes that could not conceal the mischief that he was no doubt contemplating."

In Kandahar, Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, commander of Task Force Kandahar, said: "For each IED that Canadian soldiers find and disarm, Afghan lives are spared and the processes of rebuilding their communities can continue."

Vance added, "Through constant patrolling and maintaining a presence in that community, Afghans know to trust both Canadian and Afghan soldiers and respect their efforts to bring them security from all sources of harm."

Ten Deaths Monday as Taliban increases ambushes on NATO troops in Afghanistan

2010-06-08T10:13:00.003-04:00

Separate Taliban attacks June 7 mark it the deadliest day in 2010 for NATO troops in Afghanistan. Ten service members have been killed -- seven of them are American plus a U.S. civilian contractor who trains Afghan police and a Nepalese security guard. Reports of wounded in these attacks are not disclosed, but based on earlier stats, more than 5,000 American soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been wounded since the original U.S. invasion in 2002.

While NATO gears up for a major offensive against the Taliban's renewed stronghold of Kandahar -- the former headquarters of the Taliban and the largest city in the southern province, insurgents have stepped up suicide bombings and hit-and-run attacks in the east and south war zones of Afghanistan. U.S. commanders have warned the American public to expect increased casualties once President Barack Obama declared his intention to stem the Taliban's resurrgence when he deployed 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to support the alliance's operations after eight years of fighting in the country.

Initially, President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to rout Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden's terrorist 9-11 attack on U.S. soil, but this objective switched to ousting the Taliban once American and NATO forces failed to find the terrorist leader.

IED blast kills Canadian sergeant leading foot patrol in search for weapons cache

2010-06-07T16:37:00.002-04:00

Excerpted from "Globe & Mail," Reporter Sonia Verma in Kabul

At dawn Sunday morning, an improvised explosive device killed Sergeant Martin Goudreault, 35, from Sudbury,Ontario, on his third tour of duty in Afghanistan, and fifth tour overseas through his career. He died leading a foot patrol near the village of Nakhonay, about 15 kilometers southwest of Kandahar City. Sgt. Goudreault’s patrol was searching for a weapons cache hidden by Taliban insurgents. Soldiers are increasingly finding these stockpiles hidden in Afghan villages, amongst the civilian populations. The Panjway district has become the focus of Canadian military efforts as tens of thousands of U.S. troops surge into southern Afghanistan, taking over much of the fighting in neighbouring districts.

Sgt. Goudreault was a member of 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton, serving with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment Battle group.

It was a routine mission, but a crucial one, according to Brigadier-General Jon Vance, Commander of Task Force Kandahar. “Always looking for a challenge, Martin was a qualified combat diver and had the highest personal standards of technical and tactical experience. Recognized early in his career for his leadership, Sgt. Goudreault was a model soldier; someone the soldiers in his section could look up to and emulate,” said B.-Gen Vance.

“Sgt. Goudreault died doing what he loved best; leading his section from the front. If your way of life was in peril, you would want someone like Sgt. Martin Goudreault to show up and offer help,” he added.

Sgt. Goudreault died on the same day as a parade of bikers rode down the “Highway of Heroes” into Toronto from CFB Trenton to commemorate Mayor David Miller's designation of parts of the north-south Don Valley Parkway and downtown streets leading to the coroner's office the “Route of Heroes” to honor Canada's fallen soldiers. This completes Canada's tribute to a soldier's final path home.

Celebrating International Day for United Nations Peacekeepers

2010-05-30T01:31:00.002-04:00

Today is International Day for United Nations Peacekeepers, and it brings us a moment to reflect on Canada's contributions from the first observer mission assigned by the UN to supervise elections and withdrawal of USSR and US troops from Korea in 1947-48 and as UN observers in Palestine in 1948 to the present. Today, military observers (including seven Canadians) still oversee the Israeli-Arab cease fire.

The First Mission

The actual formation of an international emergency force charged with the responsibility of keeping a "buffer zone" between belligerents while supervising the withdrawal of opposing troops occurred in 1956 following the Suez Crisis. In an attempt to establish itself as 'head' of the Arab world, Egypt decided to nationalize the Suez Canal when Britain and the United States refused to fund its building of the Aswan Dam across the Nile River in retaliation for Egypt's recognition of the People's Republic of China. It was an unpopular gesture because western allies were backing Taiwan's independence from China. Britain and France did not want to lose their access to oil in the Middle East through the Suez Canal, while Israel was concerned over Egypt's arms deal with the Soviet Union to supply them with updated military equipment, modern fighter aircraft and military trainers to turn Egyptian forces into more effective fighting units. Egyptians were already raiding Israeli cargo shipments while passing through the Suez Canal, and Israel recognized this aggressive action as a threat of war. In a secret agreement, Britain and France offered to bomb Egypt if Israel would invade Egypt from the Sinai Desert. What ensued was the Sinai War, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, in which the three allies achieved their military objectives, but the United States and the USSR forced them to withdraw in follow-up UN action. While Britain and France were politically humiliated, Israel gained the assurance of peace along the Egyptian-Israeli border once the UN assigned its first international emergency force to control the withdrawal of the tripartite aggressors.

Canadian members of the UNEF on
the Egypt – Israel border in 1962.

It was Canada’s External Affairs Minister, Lester B. Pearson, who suggested the actual notion of a UN-led “peacekeeping” force to the special emergency session of the General Assembly on November 2nd, 1956. Pearson’s suggestion culminated in the unprecedented formation of the first official armed UN peacekeeping mission, with as its first commanding officer, the Canadian General E.L.M. Burns. The sensitive and critically appropriate timing of Pearson’s proposal was key in the approval of the force and gained him the well deserved recognition of being the ‘grandfather of peacekeeping.’

54 Years of UN Peacekeeping

The deployment of the United Nations Emergency Force acted as a precedent for the way the international community would deal with conflict in the years to come. The Emergency Force formed the basic principles of peacekeeping, and in doing so, set an example for future peacekeeping deployments. The peacekeeping force was slowly transformed into peacekeeping missions with worldwide reach and a powerful impact which continues until today. The ground-breaking approach of the force also helped define Canada’s international military role for the next five decades, as well as its strong peacekeeping tradition.

However, since Canada has particpated in coalition NATO operations in Afghanistan for the past eight years, its UN peacekeeping role has seriously declined. Also peacekeeping missions have suffered severe underfunding and a growing lack of interest of western nations to contribute troops to control "hot spots" around the world. This reluctance as seen in failed missions such as Somalia, Rwanda, Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo undercuts the United Nation's effectiveness and respect. And yet, the UN currently supports 124,000 troops, civilians and police in the field -- more than any other world player except the United States -- more than the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia put together. With an annual peacekeeping budget of nearly $8 billion, the UN manages no fewer than 16 field missions at any given time. And the demand for UN peacekeeping is expected to rise in coming years.

Where is Canada in future UN peacekeeping missions? Maintaining peace in a world of conflict grows more difficult every day. The UN urgently needs personnel with advanced logistics and military capabilities to meet complex challenges to the international community. Canadian troops are among the best-trained in the world and can meet that need. But, the Harper government has yet to recommit to peacekeeping action after 2011 when it pulls out its troops from Afghanistan. For many Canadians, who are proud of the peacekeeping tradition Canada built, it's a humiliating stance to take after our soldiers have distinguished themselves with impressive duty in Afghanistan and sacrificed 146 lives so far to achieve that distinctive service.

"Weapon-without-rules" takes life of another Canadian trooper this month

2010-05-26T09:39:00.001-04:00

Matthew Fisher of Canwest News Service sends home the sad news of another soldier killed by a homemade land mine in Afghanistan on May 24, 2010. Trooper Larry Rudd, 26, from Brantford Ontario, was killed when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device while on a combat resupply patrol that was bringing food and water to troops from Canada's battle group at a remote outpost in the difficult Panjwaii District, about 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City.

British Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, five other generals and about 1,000 Canadian, American and British soldiers saluted their farewells shortly after dawn at a ramp ceremony Wednesday morning local time. Canadians prepare another tribute on their Highway of Heroes for his arrival at Canadian Forces Trenton Air Base late Thursday afternoon.

This is another loss of a young soldier with a promising future. His commanding officer, Maj. Christian Lillington, praised Rudd for his sense of humor and generosity to his fellow soldiers. "He was a huge man but as big as he was, he was probably the gentlest of the group. Larry John is very special to me."

Lillington also noted, "He had more talent than many soldiers I have seen," and predicted if his life had not been cut short, "he would have been a very senior soldier in the Queen's army."

Rudd served in "A" Squadron of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Canada's senior armored regiment, recently deployed to Afghanistan from Pettawa, Ontario, in the upper Ottawa Valley, to provide reconnaisance for Task Force Kandahar.

More than two-thirds of Canada's fatalities in Afghanistan have been caused by IEDs that have either struck soldiers on foot patrols or, as in Rudd's case, while mounted in an armored vehicle. "There is no perfect solution to defend against IEDs," Lillington admitted.

Canada now has nearly 3,000 troops serving in Afghanistan and South Asia. In eight years of combat in Afghanistan, 146 Canadians have died, including a journalist and a diplomat. In 2009, 520 NATO troops died in Afghanistan, up from 295 in 2008, mostly as a result of the Taliban laying far more IEDs. Already this year, 217 coalition troops have been killed.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=3072445#ixzz0p2XyCNU3

Taliban suicide bomber kills 18 in Kabul, including high-ranking Cdn. officer and five American soldiers

2010-05-18T15:16:00.003-04:00

A Taliban suicide bomber in a car packed with explosives struck a NATO convoy in Kabul on Tuesday, killing 18 and wounding 47 other people. Among those killed is a Canadian officer, Col. Geoff Parker, and five American troopers.

The attack comes as a reminder that determined attackers can still penetrate the city's defences just as NATO readies a major offensive in the southern province of Kandahar, a major Taliban stronghold.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in a phone call from an undisclosed location that the bomber was a man from Kabul and his car was packed with 1,650 pounds (750 kilograms) of explosive. The target of the attack was the foreign convoy, he said.

The powerful blast occurred on a major Kabul thoroughfare that runs by the ruins of a one-time royal palace and government ministries. It wrecked nearly 20 vehicles, including five SUVs in the NATO convoy, and scattered debris and body parts across the wide boulevard as U.S. troops and Afghan police held a security cordon around wrecked cars, the bus and sports utility vehicles. There were no obviously military vehicles but NATO troops often travel in unmarked SUVs in the capital.

The Canadian Forces colonel has become the latest casualty of Canada's mission in Afghanistan, and the highest-ranking soldier to give his life for the mission since it began in 2002.

Col. Simon Hetherington, deputy commander of Task Force Kandahar, explained that Col. Geoff Parker was the commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, based at CFB Gagetown and was in Kabul to interact with international organizations there in an effort to prepare his team for their upcoming mission."He was a career infantry officer — a proud member of the Royal Canadian Regiment — who excelled in virtually every position he held in the Army," said Hetherington.

"As a battalion commander, he led his soldiers from the front and with distinction. The post he was preparing to fill was important and of such high profile, he was hand-picked from across the Army to do so. A rising star, his potential was undeniable."

In a statement that seemed more detailed and personal than those that usually accompany news of Canadian casualties, Hetherington described Parker as a fun-loving and admirable man who was well-loved within the ranks of the Canadian military.

"Geoff could be incredibly funny and he had a truly infectious laugh and smile; to some, he was simply known as Parker, because that's what his wife called him," Hetherington said.

"We all knew him to be remarkably smart and the consummate professional officer. Equally important, he was always standing by as a friend. He knew when to give you the hard truth to get you going and when to lend a sympathetic ear."

Parker was the seventh Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan this year and the 145th Canadian soldier killed as part of the mission since it began eight years ago. Two civilians — diplomat Glyn Berry and journalist Michelle Lang — have also been killed.

With files the Canadian Press, Associated Press and The Globe & Mail

What drives a soldier to make the ultimate sacrifice as political support wanes?

2010-05-14T12:21:00.002-04:00

The Canadian Press reports another Canadian soldier, scheduled to conclude his deployment in southern Afghanistan in a few days, has been killed by a Taliban homemade blast.

On May 13th, Pte. Kevin McKay from the Edmonton-based 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry died about 15 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city because he was doing his job. The 24-year-old native of Richmond Hill, Ont., was on a foot patrol in the Panjwaii district village of Nakhonay at 8 p.m. local time Thursday at the time of the explosion.

McKay's death comes as hundreds of people prepare to gather in Halifax to remember the first Canadian sailor to be killed in the Afghanistan conflict. A memorial service will be held for 37-year-old Petty Officer (second class) Craig Blake, who was killed by an IED on May 3, also in the Panjwaii district.

Col. Simon Hetherington, the deputy commander of Task Force Kandahar, said McKay embodied the gritty spirit of the typical Canadian soldier. "He was the type of soldier that Canadians must think of when they think of their army in Afghanistan -- the tough, courageous infantryman, living in austere conditions and doing incredibly difficult work," Hetherington said.

"His platoon brothers and friends will remember Kevin, better known as 'Mickey' to his buddies, as a generous man, dependable, with a quick wit and a great sense of humour that was exemplified by his awesome moustache." He was also height-deprived but had no trouble "poking fun and taunting those less vertically challenged platoon mates," Hetherington added.

The Toronto Star's Mitch Potter reported earlier this week how Canadian soldiers and police are risking their lives to visit villages in the cradle of the Taliban to make sure their trainees have benefited from their police training and were applying what they have learned properly to the villages where they live. He described how troops are very conscious of the pull-out date and they don't want the sacrifices made by those before them to be in vain. They want the villagers left to feel more protected and freer, and they want to ensure this after they are withdrawn, so patrols are taking more chances as they visit and mix personally with Afghan villagers. It's typically noble of troops on the ground to believe in their mission because they see the need, while others at home watch the number of deaths and wounded escalate and wonder at the reality.

In today's Toronto Star, Rosie Dimanno laments in her nearly full-page column that, while Parliament debates and investigates the detainee issue, in Afghanistan, Canadian troops continue to die and schoolgirls are being gassed. "Spare some outrage for them," she concludes.

I'd like to add that the federal government's new policy not to address those wounded on the front line makes no sense. Surely the Taliban know the casualties accumulated on their own doorstep, so press announcements are not breaching security. Instead, this policy smacks of a cover-up, which the Toronto Star's investigative reporter David Bruser began to expose in his series "War at Home." The Canadian Association of Journalists has nominated Bruser for an award for this series in the "open newspaper" category. In his articles, Bruser describes the disturbing cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among returning Afghanistan war veterans and the growing problem of post-tour violence.

We never learn do we? This generation's war vets are getting the same lousy treatment Viet Nam vets suffered. And how does this affect the morale of troops still in country? They need to know that what they are doing makes a difference to the folks at home as well as for the locals in Afghanistan to make their conscientious efforts worth the physical and mental price they pay.

And so Private McKay becomes the the sixth Canadian military member to die in Afghanistan this year and the 144th killed as part of the Afghan mission since it began in 2002.

Blast kills Canadian sailor in Afghanistan just after he defuses another IED

2010-05-05T01:12:00.001-04:00

The Canadian Press reports another body is being shipped home from Afghanistan. This time it's a sailor.

The body of Canada's first sailor killed in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2002 is on its way home.

More than 1,500 Canadian and ISAF personnel attended a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Airfield for Craig Blake, a petty officer second class.

Blake died Monday by the blast of a makeshift bomb, the very kind of device he was in the country to defuse. The explosion happened while he and his team were walking back to camp after disarming another improvised explosive device near Pay-e-Moluk, a village in the Panjwaii district about 25 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City.

The 37-year-old leaves behind his wife and two sons. His death brings to 143 the total number of Canadian Forces members who have died as part of the eight-year-old Afghan mission.

Is the price worth the sacrifice?

2010-04-29T01:58:00.003-04:00

I've just read staggering figures in the Military Times on the amount of suicides occurring among vets and U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. According to staff reporter Rick Maze, 18 veterans commit suicide each day. New data reveals "there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department." Maze writes:

Seven percent of the attempts are successful, and 11 percent of those who don’t succeed on the first attempt try again within nine months.

Access to care appears to be a key factor, officials said, noting that once a veteran is inside the VA care program, screening programs are in place to identify those with problems, and special efforts are made to track those considered at high risk, such as monitoring whether they are keeping appointments.

Suicide attempts by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans remains a key area of concern. In fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, there were 1,621 suicide attempts by men and 247 by women who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, with 94 men and four women dying.

Americans have established a VA suicide hotline. It receives nearly 10,000 calls per month from current and former military personnel. Maze notes:

Dr. Janet Kemp, VA’s national suicide prevention coordinator, credits the hotline with rescuing 7,000 veterans who were in the act of suicide — in addition to referrals, counseling and other help. In general, VA officials said, women attempt suicide more often, but men are more likely to succeed in the attempt, mainly because women use less lethal and less violent means while men are more likely to use firearms.

I could not find such an outreach for returning Canadian service people. We continue to pipe tributes for the fallen and those loyal citizens who have faithfully paid tribute on the Highway of Heroes have grown into a strong organization called Red Fridays Foundation.

But what about our returning wounded? It's not enough to praise those who have died and then ignore those who have survived. How many of our present military and vets suffer from post traumatic stress disorder? What are we doing to help them? What are our stats on attempted and successful suicides?

Politicians create the wars soldiers fight. Don't these same politicans also have a responsibility to support their troops' rehabilitation in light of the sacrifice they've made in their country's name? Where is the voice of support for them? If there is one in Canada, it is not very loud or clear.

Ontario farm boy killed in IED attack on patrol

2010-04-13T02:23:00.003-04:00

Weeks away from capping his six-month tour of duty, Pte. Tyler William Todd, 26, was killed in a roadside blast on Sunday, April 11, while on foot patrol near Belanday, a volatile region southwest of Kandahar City. This is in the same Dand district, where journalist Michelle Lang and four Canadian soldiers were killed on Dec. 30, 2009.

From Bright, Ontario, he grew up on a farm and had trained to become a firefighter prior to joining the Canadian Armed Forces. Pte. Todd served with the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton

“Tyler was a practical joker; he would often hide rocks and candies in the other soldier's bed spaces,” Gen. Ménard said in the ramp ceremony before his body was transported to CFB Tenton. “He never allowed the small things to get to him and was often the rock that other soldiers could depend on.”

2010-04-09T19:46:00.000-04:00

Soldier succumbs to injuries sustained in bomb blast

2010-03-25T14:39:00.001-04:00

Excerpted from the Globe & Mail article by Ian Bailey and from a Canadian Press article by Murray Brewster

A Canadian soldier has died in an Edmonton hospital three weeks after he was injured by an Improvised Explosive Device while on foot patrol in Afghanistan.

The parents and brothers of Corporal Darren Fitzpatrick, 21, were at his bedside at the University of Alberta Hospital when he succumbed to undisclosed injuries on Saturday.

“Despite our grief, we are immensely proud of Darren as an incredible young man,” his family said in a statement issued Monday. They otherwise declined comment.

Cpl. Fitzpatrick, a native of Prince George, B.C., who joined the Canadian Forces in December, 2006, was based at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton where the infantryman was a member of the 3rd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

He had been in Afghanistan since October, 2009. Cpl. Fitzpatrick was critically injured west of Kandahar City on March 6, 2010, while on his first operational tour

In an earlier report, it was mentioned that more than 1400 troops have been injured in Afghanistan, but the Canadian military has quietly stopped reporting when soldiers are wounded on the battlefield and will instead deliver annual statistics to the public, according to Murray Brewster, reporting from Kandahar for the Canadian Press. "The stark policy shift is described as a deliberate attempt to keep the Taliban in the dark."

The army has long banned the release of photographs of blown-up vehicles on the basis that it would help the Taliban build bigger bombs. The military also restricts the flow of information in other ways in hopes of keeping the enemy off balance.

A lot of attention is paid to those Canadian soldiers who are killed in action; their caskets are returned to Canada to emotional crowds who out of respect line Ontario's Highway 401 with flags and tributes. Hundreds of soldiers who are severely wounded in Kandahar, however, go home in relative anonymity and silence.

As of the end of December, 2009, 529 Canadian soldiers were listed as wounded in action, according to the military's latest statistical assessment. The numbers go all of the way back to 2002 when the army first deployed to Afghanistan. A further 913 were sent home for what is described as non-battle related injuries, including medical reasons, accidents — or on compassionate grounds.

"Had the new policy been in place previously, the public might not have known about some of the military's more inspirational figures of the last few years, including Captain Trevor Greene, Master Corporal Paul Franklin and Corporal Jodie Mitic," declares Brewster .

Military unveils memorial for slain journalist at Kandahar Airfield

2010-03-13T15:57:00.000-05:00

By Steve Rennie, excerpts from The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A memorial for the first Canadian reporter killed in Afghanistan will now greet every journalist working out of the Kandahar military base.

The military unveiled a plaque Saturday for Michelle Lang, the Calgary Herald reporter killed alongside four Canadian soldiers late December.

The plaque, affixed to a wooden post and braced by small sandbags, stands between the two media tents in the Canadian compound of Kandahar Airfield. Beneath a photo of Lang is the inscription "In memory of Michelle Lang, journalist, Calgary Herald & Canwest, KIA 4:00 p.m. 30 Dec 2009, Kandahar city."

It is a simple but significant tribute to a life cut short when the armoured vehicle she was travelling in struck a huge roadside bomb. And it stands as a reminder to journalists covering the war of the perils that come with reporting from the front lines.

The acting commander of Task Force Kandahar said the military wanted to honour Lang in much the same way it has fallen soldiers. "If you look around Kandahar, you'll see forward-operating bases, patrol bases and camps that are named after fallen Canadian soldiers," Col. Simon Hetherington said.

"After Michelle's death, it became natural for us to think that given her personality, her dedication and her professionalism, that she should be granted some similar form of recognition."

Lang, 34, was killed only two weeks into her first assignment as a war correspondent for the Calgary Herald and Canwest News Service. Also killed in that blast were Sgt. George Miok, 28; Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28; Cpl. Zachery McCormack, 21; and Pte. Garrett Chidley, 21.

Matthew Fisher, a veteran Canwest reporter, remembers meeting Lang at a Calgary steak house last October before she shipped out to Kandahar. "She was just full of enthusiasm," he said. "She so badly wanted to get here."

The two colleagues spoke about Lang's apprehensions about the assignment, from the dangers that come with the job to the difficulties of filing stories from a war zone. Lang, who won a National Newspaper Award last year for coverage of health and medical issues, wanted to shift her focus away from the bombs and bullets of the war. "She had a specific line she wanted to follow," Fisher said.

"Journalism, I believe, is a very big church, and there's room for people with many different kinds of interests in it. Some of us are more interested in the hard-core, if you like, military aspect. Others are interested in things that are equally important but maybe a little bit softer in focus. And that was Michelle."

Lang spent her final days at the provincial reconstruction team headquarters in Kandahar city.

Sad Friday for Canada

2010-02-13T15:59:00.003-05:00

Sourced from Canadian and American Press

Two deaths in trial runs, almost simultaneously--first in Afghanistan and then at the Olympics in Vancouver on the luge slide, even before the Opening Ceremony.

In Afghanistan, 24-year-old Cpl. Joshua Caleb Baker was killed during a routine training exercise along with four other soldiers who were injured. Known to have a "laugh that could cure cancer," Cpl. Baker was an Edmonton native and member of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment.
     According to Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, the top commander in Kandahar, "this type of training is normal for soldiers in theatre and essential in helping them to maintain high levels of expertise."
     Menard described Baker as an "extremely passionate" person who loved his job. "Joshua was mentally tough, physically robust and had a personality that made him a natural leader," he said.
     "He had a deep love for his family and worried constantly about them. He also had a deep love for his faith; it was something he took pride in and that gave him strength."
     News of the soldier's death came as Canadian troops were taking part in the largest air assault of the Afghan war in neighbouring Helmand province.

In Vancouver, 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvilli from Georgia crashed on the Olympic luge track within sight of the finish line while travelling at nearly 90 mph. In a joint statement by the International Luge Federation and Vancouver Olympic officials, they said Kumaritashvili was late coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate. “This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem, he eventually lost control of the sled, resulting in the tragic accident.”
Kumaritashvili’s death cast a pall over the Winter Games before they even started. “I have no words to say what we feel,” said International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, visibly shaken by the day’s events.

Lest We Forget

2010-02-05T10:50:00.001-05:00

I'm sure you've read this before but it is worth reading again and again. Bonnie

HALF-MAN/HALF-BOY

The average age of the military man is 19 years. He is a short-haired, tight-muscled kid who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half-man/half-boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He never really cared much for work and he would rather wax his own car than wash his father’s, but he has never collected unemployment either.
     He’s a recent High School graduate; he was probably an average student , pursued some form of sport activities, drives a ten-year-old jalopy, and has a steady girlfriend, who either broke up with him when he left or swears to be waiting when he returns from half a world away. He listens to rock and roll or hip-hop or rap or jazz or swing and a 155-mm. howitzer.
     He is 10 or 15 pounds lighter now than when he was at home because he is working or fighting from before dawn to well after dusk. He has trouble spelling, thus letter writing is a pain for him, but he can field strip a rifle in 30 seconds and reassemble it in less time in the dark.
     He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must.
     He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional.
     He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march.
     He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient.
     He has two sets of fatigues: he washes one and wears the other. He keeps his canteens full and his feet dry.
     He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts.
     If you’re thirsty, he’ll share his water with you; if you are hungry, his food. He’ll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low.
     He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands.
     He can save your life - or take it, because that is his job.
     He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all.
     He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime.
     He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed.
     He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to ‘square-away’ those around him who haven’t bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking.
     In an odd twist, day in and day out, far from home , he defends their right to be disrespectful.
     Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the warrior who has kept our country free for more than 142 years.
     He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood.

And now we have women serving in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to War when our nation calls us to do so.
As you go to bed tonight, remember to stop for a moment and say this prayer for our troops wherever they serve. Of all the gifts you could give a pilot, soldier, or sailor, prayer is the very best one.
Prayer Wheel
‘Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen.’

A Letter from the Captain of HMCS Athabaska re: the rescue mission in Haiti

2010-02-04T02:16:00.004-05:00

ATH: 3350-1 (CO)
26 January 2010
To Families and Friends of ATHABASKAN

A FEW WORDS FROM OFF THE COAST OF HAITI
Good day to you all. As I pen these words we have many of the crew ashore providing aid and assistance to the people of Haiti. I want to assure you that the Canadian Forces, indeed all of Canada, are pitching in together to provide some relief to the Haitians in their time of need. I am sure that all of you are aware of these efforts from the news reports so I will confine myself to the spectacular contributions of your loved ones here in ATH. We are currently patrolling about 3-5 miles off the coast of a town called Leogane; it is west of the capital city of Port au Prince. It is from here that we send, on average, about 50 people ashore each day to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. I will provide more details on what we are doing a little further on.
     Leogane is one of the worst hit areas and is one of the focal efforts of Canadian humanitarian assistance. Leogane was very close to the epi-centre of the earthquake and has suffered unbelievable destruction. I would assess (please note that I am not a structural engineer and this is a personal observation) that up to 90 percent of the buildings have been destroyed. Those that remain are largely single level homes that were either very well built or had a “flexible” structure. Two story homes generally “pancaked”: the first floor gave way, unable to take the load of the second floor during the shaking. I would say that most of the 130,000 (approximately) residents of the city are now homeless and have moved to tent cities or are living in their yards and streets. It is a very sobering sight. Because of the many aftershocks, some of which would qualify as earthquakes themselves, the people are reluctant to move back into their homes that have received less damage. I don’t blame them and in the same situation would do the same thing. Water has been scarce, food limited and medical care facilities were destroyed. We are helping with temporary shelter, water and medical support. Several Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have spooled up to provide medical, food/water and shelter relief. The Canadian sailors, soldiers and airmen are helping these NGOs as much as possible.
     ATHABASKAN has done, and is doing, a fantastic job down here and I am, as you are, very proud of our accomplishments. Although some times it seems so little in an area where the need is so great, I am glad that we are here. On the 13th of Jan we all came to work in Halifax thinking that the ship was in a work period and that shoveling snow was our greatest concern. A short 36 hours later we were at sea heading south at speed. I cannot thank you enough for your support to make this happen, especially those families of sailors from other ships that joined ATH to fill critical shortages. Not knowing exactly what the situation would be like, we planned for the worst, training people and designing humanitarian assistance teams on the way. On that first day when we went ashore it was clear that we had prepared well. I am relieved that we did not have to deal with the deceased victims of the tragedy as for the most part, that task had been completed. We were able to set our minds and efforts to providing help, comfort and medical care to the survivors.
     One of the first jobs that we took on was the set-up of the Canadian Medical Assistance Team camp. Located close to the centre of Leogane, this team of doctors from Canada has treated well over a thousand of Haitians since we arrived. In addition to setting up the facility itself, we helped process patients using our casualty clearing teams; carried patients to and from the treatment tents; and, our medical teams – Doctor, Physicians Assistant and Medical Assistants - have been treating patients alongside the CMAT doctors. CMAT estimates that with our help they are able to treat twice the number of patients that would normally be possible. There have been all manner of operations done in this tent facility from setting of fractures to amputations. Our sailors, especially those who speak French, have proved invaluable in providing comfort and care to patients. On a brighter note, as has been in the press over the last day or two, two ATHABs helped bring a newborn into the world. An excerpt from our daily report:
     A Babies Tale (23 Jan 10). Two members of ATH assisted in the delivery of a baby while working with CMAT. The event took place in a makeshift surgical tent on an army cot in what used to be school playground. OS Jean-Francois Cloutier-Joly was on the field translating when someone asked him for help delivering the child. Lt(N) Kate Wyand was asked to provide assistance to the doctor and provide some privacy for the young mother to be. Although there were complications, the mother gave birth to a healthy baby boy. OS Cloutier-Joly, a Haitian orphan himself, held this tiny miracle in his arms and fed him sugar water. Lt(N) Wyand asked a young Haitian translator if he knew the name of the newborn. He informed her that Haitians typically wait seven days before naming a baby in case the child does not survive. Lt(N) Wyand’s words: “a sobering response and a quick reminder of where we are.”
     We have also been providing security to the CMAT camp during the day. Let me assure you that the Haitian people have been very orderly and calm throughout this tragedy. Line-ups for treatment have been long and they have been patient and brave, considering the seriousness of some of the injuries. The need for security has not as yet been called for but is a reasonable precaution on my part to ensure the safety of our personnel should things change.
     We are working with two orphanages to help them get back on their feet. The first one cares for about 45 kids and the couple in charge is a husband and wife - she is Canadian from Quebec City and he from California. They have a reasonable supply of food having just received a shipment from the States and we are giving them a steady supply of clean fresh water until their purification system is repaired. We built a shelter for the kids and temporary toilet facilities. Their house is still standing but has significant cracks that make it dangerous, especially with the aftershocks. They were lucky in that everyone survived the earthquake but it broke my heart to see those kids and I don’t mind saying that I shed a tear watching our sailors playing with them amid the destruction that was their home. We just took on a second orphanage with 80 kids and we are working with Crisis International to provide some temporary shelter. Our sailors are working in the heat to build a wooden frame and tarp building that will get the kids off the ground and out of the brutal heat. Crisis International is providing the materials and food and water to this mission.
     We have also gone out into the community to seek areas in which we can help – we have fixed solar panels, got generators running and restored water purification systems. Sailors have great skills that they have learned both through the Navy and from their hobbies and pastimes. All are in demand and being put to good use.
     One of the biggest assets that we have is the helicopter. It has flown everyday, landing in airports, clearings and farmers fields to move people and materials where they are most needed. We moved most of the DART medical equipment from the capital to a neighboring city, many soldiers to Leogane, and loads of supplies all over the region. We even flew two critically injured people to the US hospital ship, Comfort, who is operating a floating hospital just offshore. The aircrew is flying 8 -10 hours a day and the aircraft never goes anywhere empty. The technicians and landing crew are working in 30 to 40 degree weather to make this happen!
     Here onboard, those who are not ashore are working double time to support the teams and keep the ship running. I estimate that it takes just as many people to launch and load the boats as go ashore. The engineering spaces have been as hot as 50 degrees and guys have been down there keeping our water making at 100 percent when the tools are too hot to hold. Everyone is doing their part. I am trying to make sure that over the period that while we are here helping Haitians, everyone who wants to get ashore to help will have that opportunity.
     I know that this has been a long letter, but I wanted to let you know personally what a great job your loved ones are doing here. The pride that I feel for their accomplishments is immeasurable and moves me greatly. We were one of the first military organizations to get ashore and make an immediate improvement in the conditions ashore. While we cannot build them new homes, we can help with medical care, water and temporary shelter. I have taken the liberty of modifying the ATHABASKAN motto: We Fight (and Help) as One.

Peter Crain
Commander
Commanding Officer
HMCS ATHABASKAN
“We Fight (and Help) As One”

American and Canadian troops lead aid efforts to Haiti

2010-01-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

Port-au-Prince is in ruins after a 7.0 earthquake Tuesday, January 12, 2010.

Canadian troops in Haiti: More than 200. Eventual Canadian contingent: Some 2,000 soldiers on the ground, including 1,000 to arrive this week from Royal 22e Regiment, 200 members of the Disaster Assistance Response Team, and 500 on board two Navy vessels already en route. International military contributions: U.S. has ...more than 12,000 soldiers on the ground. UN peacekeeping force consists of 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police...more expected.

Canadian aid: Medical supplies, logistics supplies, vehicles, communications equipment, basic food rations, water, three water purification systems. Other aid: UN food World Food Programme reaching about 60,000 people daily, but says it needs to reach 2 million per day.

Canadians missing: 849 / Canadians confirmed dead: 12 / Canadians located: 1,484 / Canadians believed to be in Haiti: more than 6,000 / Canadians evacuated: 947 in 11 flights to date / Total death toll in Haiti: The European Union, quoting Haitian officials, said roughly 200,000 people may have been killed / Number of homeless in Haiti: 84,000 (UN estimate).

Doctors Without Borders reports a plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies, two dialysis machines and a mobile hospital, has been turned away five times from the Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday. "We can't look in the eyes of the victims because we don't have enough supplies to help them." This is why this group couldn't help the abandoned orphans CTV's Tom Clarke found.

139th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan

2010-01-18T01:12:00.001-05:00

While the world's attention has been on Haiti, another Canadian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. Sgt. John Faught, 44, of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, was on his third deployment in Afghanistan. A father figure to his troops, he was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province. Sgt. Faught was a member of the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton and was affectionately known as "Toast" because of his crusty personality.

NATO said Sunday an American soldier had been killed a day earlier in eastern Afghanistan in an encounter with insurgents, but gave no other details.

Devastating earthquake hits Haiti

2010-01-15T01:33:00.002-05:00

Excerpts from Associated Press and Canadian Press reports..

On Tuesday, a -7 earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital city. Though the port is closed, the city's airport was open but damaged, making it difficult to handle incoming aid flights Wednesday and Thursday. Thousands of building have been flattened, including the parliament building, hospitals, a prison and the UN headquarters.
     Alexander G. Higgins, The Associated Press, reported: "Roads full of hungry, homeless people. An estimated 50,000 dead. A ruined port and an overwhelmed airport. Hundreds of crumpled buildings and little heavy machinery. Few working phones."
     "It's chaos," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told him. "It's a logistical nightmare."
     Canada has confirmed four Canadians dead--one is a mission nurse from Elmira, Ontario. She had just arrived 45 minutes before the quake hit. Another is an RCMP officer found dead in the rubble of his Haitian home. He was part of a UN training program.
    Law-and-order needs have fallen to the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers and international police in Haiti, but 36 of them have been confirmed killed, while 200, including top staff, have yet to be found. Fifty-one Canadian police officers have been relocated to the United Nations logistics base in Port-au-Prince, where they are providing humanitarian assistance, whereas 29 Canadian police officers located in remote regions not severely affected by the earthquake continue their UN duties.
     Of the estimated 45,000 Americans in Haiti, the U.S. Embassy had contacted almost 1,000. Only one American was confirmed dead, a veteran Foreign Service officer, killed in her collapsed home.
     Amid the horror, a new life was born just hours after the quake struck. The baby girl is doing fine, but the life of the mother who suffered shock is at risk.
     Some 60 aid flights had arrived by midday Thursday, but they then had to contend with the chokepoint of an overloaded Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport. At midday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was temporarily halting all civilian flights from the U.S. at Haiti's request, because the airport was jammed and jet fuel was limited for return flights. The control tower had been destroyed in Tuesday's tremor, complicating air traffic. Civilian relief flights were later allowed to resume.
     Many hospitals were too badly damaged to use, and doctors struggled to treat crushed limbs, head wounds and broken bones at makeshift facilities where medical supplies were scarce. Aid group Doctors Without Borders was sending an inflatable hospital with two operating theaters and capable of housing 100 beds.
     Canada is rushing to ease the chaos in earthquake-battered Haiti, sending helicopters, ships and a disaster response team to rescue those buried in the rubble and help thousands of homeless wandering without food, water or medical help. Canada has committed an immediate $5 million in humanitarian assistance and promises speedy deployment of aid. A C-130 military transport plane arrived in Haiti on Wednesday with a reconnaissance team that will assess what military personnel and equipment is needed. On Thursday, a huge C-17 military transport plane landed in Haiti. It carried a utility helicopter and tons of equipment and personnel. "The transport planes can be used to evacuate Canadians if necessary," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
     Officials said two ships, HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax, left Thursday for Haiti. They will carry everything from a helicopter to chainsaws, generators and first-aid kits.
     More than 100,000 people of Haitian descent, including Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean, live in Canada, most in Quebec. "Like me, Haitian communities across Canada are heartbroken and overwhelmed by the magnitude of this catastrophe," a distraught Jean told a news conference, choking back tears.
     "The images and news reports are unbearable to watch. So much distress, suffering and loss."

WHAT CAN YOU DO? You can make donations to aid agencies of your choice online, or go directly to the web site for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) here.

Foreign Affairs is urging Canadians worried about friends and family in Haiti to call its emergency operations centre in Ottawa at 1-800-387-3124 for assistance.

For updates, they can also check the Foreign Affairs website www.international.gc.ca/humanitarian-humanitaire/earthquake-seisme-haiti.aspx.

Canadians in Haiti are urged to make their way to the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince.

Gigantic IED explosion kills Canadian reporter and four Canadian soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, while 8 Americans are killed in suicide attack near Pakistan/Afghan border...

2009-12-30T19:44:00.019-05:00

Bodies of four Canadian soldiers and journalist to arrive at Trenton Air Base Sunday afternoon about 3 p.m. for Canadians wanting to show their tribute and respect on the Highway of Heroes.

Video of Michelle Lang
Excerpted from articles by Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A Calgary-based journalist became the first Canadian reporter to die in Afghanistan when she was killed Wednesday along with four Canadian soldiers by a massive improvised explosive device. The enormous blast ripped through their steel-plated vehicle, tossing it aside and leaving a massive crater in the dusty road, a thoroughfare that's often heavily travelled by Canadian troops. The five deaths in a relatively safe part of Kandahar city represented the worst loss of life for the Canadian mission in Afghanistan in two-and-a-half-years.
     Killed were: Sgt. George Miok, 28, Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28, Cpl. Zachery McCormack, 21, Pte. Garrett Chidley, 21 and Michelle Lang, 34, a health reporter with the Calgary Herald. She was in the back of the armoured vehicle at the time. One Canadian civilian official and four other Canadian soldiers were injured. They were reported in stable condition by Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, commander of coalition forces in Kandahar, during his announcement to the press.
     "Yesterday, Canada lost five citizens," Menard said early Thursday. "The soldiers were conducting a community security patrol in order to gather information on the pattern of life and maintain security in the area."
     The IED blast occurred just 1,500 metres from the Dand district centre, a "model village," which Canadian soldiers helped rebuild after a suicide bombing there in April. Witnesses described panic among locals, as Canadian soldiers rushed to secure the area and airlift the victims to medical care. The incident was the second lethal strike by the insurgents in a week. Lt. Andrew Nuttall and an Afghan soldier were killed Dec. 23 during a foot patrol in Panjwaii district.
     Lang, on her first assignment in Afghanistan for Canwest News Service, had arrived in the country about two weeks ago. She won a National Newspaper Award last year for coverage of health and medical issues for the Calgary Herald. "The journalist was travelling with (the troops) to tell the story of what Canada's soldiers are doing in Afghanistan," Menard said.
     While she had spent a few days visiting bases with Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk, it was her first patrol "outside the wire" as an embedded journalist. "I've seen a lot of reporters come here who seem like action junkies or kind of 'Hey, look at me, I'm in Afghanistan'," said James Murray, a CBC reporter who has spent the past six of seven months here. "She was the kind of journalist you would want to have here. She was kind and decent, and curious."

Menard said he did not expect any changes to the embed program as a result of the tragedy. The horrific day for Canada's Afghan mission was the worst since July 4, 2007, when six Canadian soldiers - four from the Princess Patricia's - were killed in a roadside blast west of Kandahar city. Both Canadian and American soldiers have stepped up their presence in addition to moving out of bases into "platoon houses" in Afghan villages as part of their strategy of trying to reassure locals of their security.
Wednesday's strike also came on a day when hundreds of Afghans took to the streets to protest the killing of 10 civilians, including school children, in military operations by international forces. President Hamid Karzai's office said the deaths occurred on Sunday in a remote part of Kunar province.
Also Wednesday, U.S. officials reported that eight American CIA agents have been killed in a suicide attack on a military base in southeastern Khost province.

A JOURNALIST'S DARK HOURS OF FEAR AND RAW NERVES

The Globe's Graeme Smith reflects on the

risks of reporting from a war zone

From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 9:53PM EST
Last updated on Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009 2:33AM EST

You take a deep breath before climbing into an armoured vehicle in Kandahar. You have to think about why you travel the battlefields of southern Afghanistan, and whether the task is worth the risk.
     It's impossible to know what Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang was thinking as she embarked on her fateful trip out with the troops, but most journalists who cover the front lines have experienced these moments, or something similar: the dark hours of confronting fear.
     It starts before your alarm goes off in the morning, when you wake in your sleeping bag with the sound of helicopters in the distance. Were you woken by the sound of a fighter jet, or a bad dream? Or maybe it's your own nervousness that got you up, that animal instinct to face trouble on your feet.
     The nerves get worse as you approach the hour of departure. Dawn is only a glimmer of orange above the razor-wire fences of the military base, too early for breakfast at the cafeteria, so you grab a handful of snacks in the media tent. The food sits uneasily in your stomach as you assemble what you need for a convoy.
     At the beginning of the Kandahar mission, back in 2006, it was simple: you just threw on a helmet and flak jacket. The military added a list of other safety gear as the casualties grew; at first the journalists scoffed at the new requirements, but they stopped complaining as the deaths mounted.
     Now your gear is dirty, and smells like old sweat. You have ballistic eye goggles, fire-retardant gloves, and a long-sleeved shirt. The shirt is made with natural fibres. You can't wear most synthetic clothes because flame will melt that cloth into skin.
     Safety briefings were later added and became mandatory for entry to Kandahar Air Field. You wondered if the medical officer had intentionally timed his slideshow of gruesome photos as a prelude to the lunch break. Those grim images stuck with you as you travelled the roads with the troops.
     Journalists begged to get rides on convoys in the early days of the mission, when the dangers were smaller and minor incidents made the news. Then a bomber proved the Iltis jeeps weren't tough enough for Afghanistan, and that vehicle was replaced by the G Wagon. More bombs showed the G Wagon didn't have enough armour, either. Canada placed a rush order for the RG-31 Nyala, a vehicle designed like a boat to ride shock waves from mine blasts, but even that technology was defeated by Taliban bombs. The insurgents keep planting bigger mines, payloads that can toss a seven-ton vehicle in the air like a toy truck.
     These days, journalists aren't so enthusiastic about road trips. You steel yourself against the fear, when it's necessary. Some of the methods now used for transporting people by road in Kandahar haven't yet caught the Taliban's attention, so the experience cannot be described in public. But whether you're strapping yourself into an RG-31, or clambering into the darkness of a LAV-3, or riding in a different Canadian vehicle, you're usually fighting a feeling of claustrophobia. You must surrender yourself to the expertise of the soldiers, who face these dangers frequently. You must remember to breathe.
     Soldiers used to joke around on these trips. They ripped pages from dirty magazines and wallpapered the ceiling of the vehicles. They peered out at the landscape from their windows or video screens, and made up funny stories about what they imagined the local Afghans were doing. But you heard less laughter inside the armoured vehicles as the years passed. You spend hours listening to the sound of the engine and the white noise of the ventilation fans. You avoid eye contact with others in the cabin, like passengers in the subway. You are alone with yourself.
     It's easy to get paranoid, after too much of this. You used to stretch out your legs on the seat in front of you, until somebody told you that your horizontal legs increased the surface area of your body that could get hit by shrapnel. You're not sure if that's true, but you tuck your legs in anyway. You shift sideways in your seat, to keep your butt covered by the extra protection of a Kevlar blanket, but it's hard to keep your spot inside the cabin as the vehicle bucks and pitches like a boat on choppy waters.
     By the time the vehicle stops, and the hatch opens, you aren't just grateful for the fresh air. You are exiting limbo, a cramped metal box in which you can't do anything except worry. You step out of the vehicle and you're almost grateful to be standing in a war zone. The light hurts your eyes and your muscles ache.
     Why bother? Sometimes you ask yourself that question with a note of bitterness. All the best information in the world has not stopped Kandahar from slipping further into chaos. You cannot pretend that journalists have solved any of the problems in southern Afghanistan. Still, you are optimistic by nature. You hope that better understanding of the war will somehow help the situation.
     For this moment, at least, stumbling down the ramp of the armoured vehicle and blinking in the harsh Afghan sunshine, you're facing the trouble on your feet.

Graeme Smith was the Globe's main correspondent in Afghanistan
from 2005 till the end of 2008.

Christmas Video on YouTube for troops

2009-12-27T05:41:00.002-05:00

Sad Christmas for Canadian officer's family

2009-12-24T12:35:00.003-05:00

Lt. Andrew Nuttall, along with an Afghan soldier, died when an improvised explosive device detonated in the town of Nakhoney on Christmas Eve. He was on foot patrol in the volatile Panjwaii district of southern Afghanistan. An Afghan interpreter was also seriously injured. Nuttall, 30, of Prince Rupert, B.C., belonged to the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton.

According to Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, commander of coalition forces in Kandahar province, "Andrew wanted to lead from the front and set the example, attributes he passionately displayed every time he was in front of his platoon."

Menard cited Nakhoney as an example where the reinforced Canadian forces were having an impact in providing security for local Afghans. At the time of his death, Nuttall was searching for Taliban transit routes, Menard said. "His patrol was part of our efforts to protect the people of the village from insurgents."

Under Menard's new strategy, soldiers are moving out of their relatively safe operating bases to move into platoon houses in the community.

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean said she was "deeply saddened. This death comes at the end of a particularly difficult year, and as we begin the holiday season, an important time for families," Jean said. "It is a harsh reminder of the enormous sacrifices our soldiers and their loved ones have agreed to make so that stability and security can be re-established in a dangerous region of the world and to help people who have been deprived of their most fundamental rights, distressed by years of violence and oppression."

Nuttall is survived by his mother Jane and father Richard.

Excerpted from The Canadian Press, article by Colin Perkel

Globe & Mail's Christie Blatchford supports boots on the ground in detainee dispute

2009-12-17T16:39:00.014-05:00

Christie Blatchford is known for her candid if not blunt opinions at times. Here she explains why she thinks the issue of Canadian troops handing over prisoners to local Afghan authorities (said to abuse and torture their prisoners) is overblown.

Column by CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD cblatchford@globeandmail.com

Published on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009 12:00AM EST Last updated on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009 2:30AM EST

I am not one of those smart Ottawa reporters who, having suffered through too many Question Periods, know what constitutes torture better than anyone else. Nor am I a mandarin, politician or aide, all of whom have endured the same, plus the practice of jackal journalism, which is what the modern game has become.

So perhaps, when such good people raise their voices, as they did this week, and cry "Torture! Cover-up! Bombshell!", I should simply defer to their greater collective wisdom and yield the floor.

Alas, I am constitutionally unable. Also, for the most part, I think they're blowing smoke out their bums. Besides, since Parliament has now ordered the government to produce thousands of uncensored documents on Afghan detainees, it seems clear that whether officially or through leaks, many of these documents over the coming weeks and months will one way or another be making a public appearance.

I confess my biases right now.

I spent a good part of 2006 in Kandahar -- three tours of between four to six weeks each in about 10 months, with another tour in '07 -- as an embedded reporter with Canadian troops. I counted on them to keep my ass safe, and they did. I liked them hugely. The experience was one of the most significant of my life (if not on a par with the drama of being, say, in a budget lockup) and I treasure every minute of it. I made some lifelong friends, and I love some of these men.

In that time, I never saw Canadian soldiers behave less than honourably. I saw them treat with kindness a wounded Taliban soldier, and a dead one with respect. I might have seen them detain some Taliban too, but that particular day, I was sitting, too scared to move, inside a light armoured vehicle, left witless by the fighting the night before.

I hold no particular brief for the Stephen Harper government, or any of its ministers, or the institution that is the military. I think they have all handled the detainee file clumsily. What they needed to say, ages ago, was that the detainee agreement wasn't very good to start with, and that they muddled along for the first year, finally fixing it in 2007.

If they wanted to be partisan about it -- and Mr. Harper's government is said by its critics to be fiercely partisan about everything -- they could have pointed out that the agreement was the result of the great wide streak of anti-Americanism that ran through the Jean Chrétien government circa 2005, when detainee policy was first fixed.

Canada should have agreed to hand over prisoners to the Americans, where they could have been ably monitored by embedded Canadian Military Police; such arrangements are common among allies.

Instead, to avoid that hideous spectacle, the government of the day opted for handing over prisoners to the barely functional institutions of a country that had been pulverized during decades of war and whose culture is demonstrably punitive, physical and primitive. It made no sense then, and not much more now.

All of which is to say, perhaps the coming release of documents, whether by trickle or flood, will reveal government or high-level military duplicity. I haven't a clue.

My faith begins and ends with the Canadian soldier and goes as far up the chain as his commanding officer, with a couple of generals, whom I have come to know a little, above them thrown in for good measure.

With that in mind, I offer the following observations. The first is that the hysteria of this week to the contrary, there is still no evidence that any prisoners taken by Canadian soldiers and handed over to Afghan authorities were tortured.

What there is, after General Walt Natynczyk's clarification late this week - this was the "bombshell," though I prefer the French as per the Liberal Party's news release, "La bombe lancée par Natynczyk" - is one case of an Afghan who was sort of and only briefly in Canadian custody, handed over to Afghan authorities, and then rescued by Canadian soldiers, though not from torture.

What happened, I have been told by an army source, is this: On June 14, 2006, a Canadian Military Police officer who was working with the Afghan National Police was on the scene when the ANP stopped a van leaving a battle. The ANP said one of the three men inside was definitely a Taliban. The MP photographed the man and wrote his name down, but agreed to let him travel with the ANP back to Patrol Base Wilson. It was a 15-minute trip. Back at the base, the MP dutifully checked on the fellow and found the ANP beating him with their shoes. The MP then took the man back and made him an official detainee.

The event was reported, but was considered by everyone to be a minor, low-level battlefield incident. The ANP unit in question had had one of their own killed just the day before. This is not to justify what they did to the fellow, but torture, to my mind, it was not. That's one thing.

Secondly, the MP didn't photograph the man purely to show he was in good condition when he got into the ANP truck. Canadians routinely photographed every prisoner they detained, in part because most Afghans don't carry identification and sometimes have only one given name, but also so that international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, had solid evidence of who was who.

Thirdly, it would be helpful if politicians on all sides of the House remembered to make the distinction between the conduct of Canadian soldiers -- who by every account behaved exactly as Canadians would want them to behave -- and the detainee issue.

The Conservatives can't deflect every question by pointing to the yellow support-the-troops pins on their lapels; they have no patent on patriotism. If I were a member of that government, I'd release every document I could, protecting only names and information that must be protected. But neither can Opposition members casually toss around words like torture and phrases like complicity in torture and expect to be simultaneously seen as defenders of the troops: After all who, if not the Canadian Forces, would have been complicit in the torture they allege?

Finally, I remind everyone who wants to comment upon all of this to be aware that what they are doing is parsing, reviewing and assigning nuance to decisions that were made on the battlefield, in the warmth and sometimes the heat of battle. I have every confidence in those decisions, and the soldiers who made them, and very little in anyone else.

A Musical Salute to Canada's Highway of Heroes

2009-12-06T20:51:00.003-05:00

A group from Cobourg, Ontario, produced this song tribute in Belleville at the Ontario Armories, home of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment (reverently called the Hasty Ps, by their comrades in arms). The video is from footage taken along the Highway of Heroes.

Hurrah!!!! Alberta journalist and Australian photographer freed in Somalia after 15 months in prison

2009-11-25T17:00:00.001-05:00

After 15 months of captivity in war-torn Somalia, Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and her companion Australian photographer Nigel Brennan have been freed. They have endured months of torture and isolation. What kept her sane was imagining she was somehwere sunny--she chose Stanley Park in Vancouver as her imaginary haven. Her captors demanded one million dollars for the pair's release. There was no mention in the Canadian Press article whether her ransom was paid or by whom. We're just thankful she and the photographer have been safely released.

ONE AFGHAN HERO STANDS OUT

2009-11-12T13:53:00.007-05:00

Last year, when I saw a TV documentary about Captain Trevor Green's miraculous rehabilitation, I cried. He is the Terry Fox of the Canadian Forces today but is so humble he doesn't realize it.

Back in public view, Capt. Greene, 44, was the honored guest speaker at a fundraiser founded two years ago by Canada's former chief of defence staff, Rick Hillier. Greene is the Afghan hero who best represents the families whose members have died and those caring for wounded Canadian soldiers who need assistance from the Military Families Fund so named the True Patriot Love Foundation to support their recovery.

Three years ago, Trevor Greene led his platoon into an Afghan village to negotiate with community elders about ways the Canadian military could help them develop their economy and build schools for their children. He and a colleague removed their helmets as they sat cross-legged within the circle. It was their gesture of respect. They were determined to win the elders' trust, but a young boy suddenly came up from behind and struck Greene with an axe. The brutal slash cut down through his head and effectively split his brain in two. No one expected him to live, but with dogged tenacity he clung to life.

Green calls his rehabilitation "a marathon of baby steps." Through it, his fiancée, Debbie Lepore, has been as brave, steadfast and determined as he has been. She has never lost her faith in him or in God's power to heal him, even when the doctors could not promise he would ever speak again, and then when he was told he would never walk again. Though he gave his speech from his wheelchair, he can now stand on his own. Next July, he intends to walk down the aisle to marry Debbie. They have a four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Grace, who has waited from birth to see the "impossible" feat of her daddy on his feet and hear her parents say, "mission accomplished."

On Monday night, Governor General Michaelle Jean presented him with a new medal recognizing Canadian soldiers' service and bravery today. On Tuesday night, November 10, 2009, he spoke in soft, halting sentences to high-powered dignitaries including Prince Charles and raised $2 million for the True Patriot Love Foundation. The folks who heard Capt. Greene's speech will never forget him. Neither do the soldiers who have served with him. And neither will I.

Canada's Afghan strategy tested with death of Sapper Steven Marshall

2009-10-31T10:36:00.002-04:00

It's with sadness that I post another casualty just two days later. Below is an article written by Jonathan Montpetit of The Canadian Press.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Canada's new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan will be put to the test after an IED blast Friday killed Sapper Steven Marshall near one of its showcase model villages, the second Canadian death in just over 48 hours. His draped coffin will arrive at Canadian Forces Trenton Air Base on Monday, November 2nd, 2009.

Marshall, 24, of 11 Field Squadron 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based in Edmonton, Alta., was struck while on a late-afternoon patrol through Panjwaii district, 10 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city. There were no other casualties.

The military said he was conducting a foot patrol at the time he was killed. His death contributes to a rough start for the current rotation of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, with whom Marshall deployed less than a week ago. Fellow Princess Pat Lieut. Justin Boyes, 26, was killed by an IED on Wednesday morning, only 10 days into his mission.

"At the time of his death, Steven was working toward securing the Panjwaii district in order to provide a more stable environment for the Afghan population living there," Task Force Commander Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance said Friday. "A stable environment is the best defence against insurgents, because they have no way to counter the positive effects that soldiers like Steven bring to bear."

A Canadian Press reporter who was at a platoon house in Belanday heard the explosion more than a kilometre away, which was followed by a brief burst of small-arms fire. There were conflicting reports about whether the gunfire was directed at the base. Griffon attack helicopters and infantry teams were dispatched to secure the area while Marshall was taken by helicopter to the military hospital at Kandahar Airfield.

"Know that his death will also sadden the Afghan community where he worked to bring them a better life," said Vance.

Marshall, whose hometown is being reported by CTV as Calgary, was described by Vance as a popular member of his unit thanks in part to his sense of humour and "contagious grin."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement Friday that also paid tribute to Marshall. "Sapper Marshall, a professional soldier and a dedicated Canadian, has made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan," it said. "The Government of Canada continues to work with its allies towards returning safety and stability to the people of Afghanistan. Progress has been made, but much hard work remains to be done."

Belanday's village elder, or malik, paid a visit to the platoon house late Friday night to hold a meeting with military officials. Belanday, and the five-kilometre area around it, are among a series of villages in Dand district where the Canadian military has been experimenting with a population-centric counter-insurgency strategy. Marshall's company is based in Belanday, though he was posted to a nearby platoon house responsible for patrolling parts of neighbouring Panjwaii, where Boyes was killed Wednesday. The army hopes to expand these model villages further west into Panjwaii, but have met stiff opposition from the Taliban. Canadian troops have maintained a continuous presence around Belanday since July, when they moved into a local compound after clearing the area of insurgents. Their presence was originally intended to provide a buffer zone to the original model village of Deh-e-Bagh, southwest of Kandahar city. But the Van Doos battle group opted to keep a platoon stationed in Belanday to mentor Afghan police and prevent insurgents from returning by offering work projects to locals.

The outgoing company commander, Cpt. Jean Vachon, says they eventually earned the trust of locals, to the point where soldiers on patrol walked hand-in-hand with children and received repeated tip-offs about IEDs. "When we arrived it was a ghost village, there was no one who wanted to speak with us; they were scared," he told The Canadian Press hours before Marshall was killed. "But soon the village streets filled up, even with women who were walking around without their faces covered."

But there had been worrying signs of late that insurgents were keen on reasserting their presence the area. On Sept. 13, Canadian soldier Pte. Patrick Lormand, 21, was killed by an IED. And several days later two young girls were killed in a similar blast. Marshall's death shows that months of progress made by the Van Doos is now being seriously threatened by the resurgent Taliban. "It means there are still insurgents out there living among the population," said Lieut. Jeremie Verville, who has headed a platoon based in Belanday for the past three months. "There is still some work (to) do."

Other Van Doos warned that their recently arrived replacements might be inclined to treat the population with suspicion and hostility in reaction to the death, which Verville said would strain the trust it took them months to build. There was also speculation within the platoon house that insurgents were seeking to exploit the troop replacement process. Soldiers themselves acknowledge that they become less aware as they near the end of their tours, and that new arrivals can lack experience in the field.

Casualties mount for NATO forces in Afghanistan

2009-10-29T11:49:00.002-04:00

Lt. Justin Boyes was killed in an IED blast Wednesday morning in Afghanistan's Panjwaii district. The explosion also injured two other Canadian soldiers. More than 2,500 Canadian and international troops lined the tarmac at Kandahar Airfield as Lt. Boyes' flag-draped coffin was carried onto a military transport plane. Boyes was only 10 days into his second tour in Afghanistan. He was leading a platoon tasked with mentoring Afghan National Police when it was struck by the IED. He is the 132nd Canadian soldier to die in the Afghan mission since it began in 2002, and the first soldier killed in the current rotation. His body arrived at Canadian Forces Trention Air Base on Saturday afternoon, October 31st, for the honorary trip down the Highway of Heroes.

(Excerpted from the Canadian Press)

In the U.S., President Obama was part of the honor guard waiting for the return of 18 fallen Americans Thursday at the Delaware military base. At least 55 U.S. forces have been killed in October, making this the deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.

(Excerpted from the Associated Press.)

Has Canada’s prime minister jeopardized chances for saving Canadian journalist retained in Iran?

2009-09-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

Maziar Bahan, a Canadian journalist on assignment to Newsweek magazine, was covering the Iranian election when he was retained in Iran without charge. He's been held incommunicado in a solitary cell since June without access to his lawyer or Canadian consulate. Recently he was allowed one phone call to his wife in Canada, who is expecting their first baby shortly. She has pleaded with Canadian Foreign Affairs that she needs him home with her when the baby arrives. In the phone call, she did not tell Maziar about the complications she has suffered during her pregnancy. She used the time to bolster his spirits the best she could.

When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper boldly walked out of the United Nations yesterday to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech denying the Holocaust and breeches of human rights within Iran, did he even consider how his actions could impact one of Canada's own citizens? Already the federal government has experienced the result of its "do-nothing to interfere" action toward another Canadian journalist wrongfully detained in Iran in 2003, when the Iranian regime murdered Zahra Kazemi, a Montreal photojournalist. No justice has ever been served in her death.

Prior to Harper's walkout at the UN yesterday, he said: “It is important that countries that have a moral compass stand up and make their views known.”

I agree with this morning's Globe and Mail editorial. Mr. Harper should back up his rhetoric and do more publicly to "condemn the unjustified detention of Mr. Bahari." All Canadians demand his release. Why don't you, Mr. Prime Minister? Where is your moral compass when we need it?

Hoooorah for Rosie!

2009-09-19T14:59:00.002-04:00

Rosie Dimanno, a columnist for “The Toronto Star,” has undergone seven news assignments in Afghanistan since 2001, a few tours as an embedded reporter with the Canadian Military. Fed up with the growing debate over Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan, she spoke out in her column today: AFGHANS NEED US.

She decries two “The Globe and Mail” columnists’ recent comments, opinions formed by the way from their cozy chairs in their home offices. (I could be accused of the same thing except I was once out there with the Canadian military in Rwanda and “eyes on the ground” change your whole perspective). Margaret Wenty claims that Canadian solders no longer risk their lives going “outside the wire.”

Unquote Wenty in her column: “Apart from the model village, our soldiers don't get out much. They no longer chase the Taliban. Mostly, they’re trapped behind the wire at the base in Kandahar, where IEDs won’t get them. There is no technical answer to the roadside bombs, which explode even on what are supposedly the safest roads. Whenever possible, personnel fly by helicopter. Development efforts are increasingly managed from inside the wire—Afghans go in to report, but Canadians don’t see for themselves. Outside the model village, they no longer have contact with Afghans.”

I agree with Rosie. Unless she has been embedded in the Canadian military and seen this for herself, she has NO right to make such outrageous and misleading statements. Two days ago, another soldier was killed and the 11 other troopers with him in their armored vehicle injured in an IED attack on patrol beyond the safe haven of the base. The Canadian military continues to carry out its mission in Afghanistan to protect and to develop despite the ignorance of those at home who spread such inappropriate rumors.

And then there’s good ole, thought-provoking Rick Salutin, the other “Globe” columnist Rosie targets. She scoffs at his suggestion the Taliban have a justice system that works, compared to Afghans’ miserable courts. Of course it works. The Taliban rule by fear. Rosie’s point: To the Taliban, jurisprudence is managed with summary executions.

Salutin makes his “get-out-of-Afghanistan” position by comparing Afghanistan to another Viet Nam defeat or to the British abandoning India. He says this to make his point that liberators such as the British and the United States never learn they can’t interfere with the local people’s civil riffs, customs, cultures and traditional attitudes without robbing the victims of their right to self-sufficiency.

Hello!! Has this not been the very reason why Canada has insisted that local development goes hand-in-hand with our military intervention on behalf of the UN?

Out of the 131 killed while serving in Afghanistan, only one family has spoken out against the mission. In troop rotations stretched beyond capacity, this is an amazing endorsement by the personnel on the ground. They better than anyone can judge how effective their mission has been.

Rosie states: “I am well aware of what is not working . . . but I’ve seen Afghans—the vast majority of them—alarmed about the West abandoning them again and withdrawing troops prematurely.”

Rosie has witnessed that Western intervention has been the only thing both to hinder the Talibans’ return and to permit effective reconstruction of the Afghans’ country. “For those who care to actually look, this has been a historic period of restoring institutions in a country that lost all of that over three decades of war.”

The Canadian military may not be able to stretch their limited fighting force past the 2011 pull-out date, but it is in favor of changing its role in Afghanistan to help expanding United States troops secure the country from persistent Taliban insurgencies by concentrating on Afghanistan’s redevelopment and independent training of security and police forces. If the Afghans are not prepared to give up, neither should we. We’ve sacrificed too many to make such a mockery of their achievements.

Sleep last night?

2009-09-17T15:11:00.001-04:00

Here's what our Canadian and American forces did yesterday:

This photo was forwarded from one of the last U.S. Marine companies stationed in Iraq: Baker Company.

CANADA'S PRIORITIES IN AFGHANISTAN

2009-09-16T09:20:00.004-04:00

Anna Mehler Paperny of the Globe & Mail charts what Canada set out to do in Afghanistan at the outset of its military mission in 2002 and what it has actually accomplished.

Training/mentoring Afghan National Security Forces
Goal: Increased capacity of both Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police in Kandahar by 2011 Progress: Both army and police are taking on greater roles, with Canada providing some of their training. But critics have voiced concerns about continuing allegations of torture or abuse of power.

Basic services
Goal: Ability of Kandahar's administration to provide basic services to "key districts" of the province by 2011.
Progress: Five of the 50 schools in Canada's "signature" school-building project are complete, and 28 are under construction. Surveys this spring indicated residents are less satisfied with the education available. Rehabilitation of the Dahla Dam, another signature Canadian project, continues.

Humanitarian assistance
Goal: Make humanitarian assistance available for Afghan refugees, returnees and for internally displaced persons by 2011.
Progress: Canada has continued its signature polio vaccination project, but new cases continue to be reported - eight during the second quarter of this year. The report states the insurgency as well as an increasing number of cases in Pakistan, are impeding the eradication program. Canada is also clearing land mines and contributing to food and refugee aid through the UN and the World Food Program.

Border security and dialogue
Goal: A stronger capacity on the part of Afghan and Pakistani institutions to manage their border and foster economic development in the border area.
Progress: A trilateral Washington summit was held this spring between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. Canada is assisting in plans for a new border facility in Spin Boldak.

Democratic development and national institutions
Goal: Increased capacity on the part of national, provincial and local institutions, particularly in Kandahar province, to govern democratically, deliver public programs and carry out democratic elections.
Progress: The report released yesterday calls Afghanistan's government capacity "chronically weak and undermined by widespread corruption." There was widespread intimidation and threats of violence leading up to the national election last month, whose results have been called into question based on allegations of pervasive fraud.

Political reconciliation
Goal: Encouragement of political reconciliation on the part of provincial and national Afghan government initiatives, supported by Canada.
Progress: "The onset of the summer fighting season and the concentration of politicians and activists on the August elections discouraged expectations of noteworthy initiatives in reconciliation," the report notes.

Lest we forget their sacrifice

2009-09-14T12:37:00.002-04:00

Today, the Globe & Mail newspaper reprinted a press release by the Canadian Press' Bill Graveland in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I repeat it here:
Last updated on Monday, Sep. 14, 2009 10:11AM EDT

The “bright, clear eyes” of another young Canadian soldier were closed forever Sunday as an improvised explosive device raised Canada's death toll in this bleak and unforgiving land to 130.

Private Patrick Lormand, 21 of the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment was killed and four others were injured in a roadside IED blast approximately 13 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city.

“He did not come here as a potential victim, he came here to help and help he did. He does not need to be told his efforts are futile for he could see positive results in the communities he was protecting,” said an emotional Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, the commander of Task Force Kandahar.

“You need only look into those young, clear eyes to know that he was a good soul, who tried every day to do the right thing and saw in the results of his efforts a chance to succeed on a wider scale on behalf of Canadians and Afghans alike.”

An opinion column that ran in several Canadian newspapers from Colin Kenny, the chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, criticized the Afghan mission as being ‘futile' and said, “It's time to retreat from Canada's Vietnam.”

“He took a fatal strike where an Afghan family might have. He lived in the community so they knew the families he was protecting and they saw him as just that – a protector,” said Brig.-Gen. Vance.

“Neither he nor his family benefit from uninformed opinions about what his goals were and the techniques he used to achieve them,” he added. “The thousands of young, clear, determined eyes that remain wide open here in Kandahar are working hard, every day to protect and stabilize the population – not an impossible mission as some might suggest.”

Pte. Lormand was on a patrol in the volatile Panjwaii district, where Canadian soldiers have been battling the Taliban for the past few years. The injured soldiers were treated at Kandahar Airfield for minor injuries and released.

The incident happened at 1 p.m. Kandahar time on Sunday. Journalists at Kandahar Airfield were informed almost immediately, but it was nearly a full 24 hours before the Canadian forces lifted the embargo.

Pte. Lormand, or “Lorm” as he was known to his friends, was well-liked and his good humour and happiness was credited with raising the morale of his section and his platoon. He had pride in his mission, said Brig.-Gen. Vance, and was dedicated to his peers and to his career as an infantryman. He is survived by his parents Jacques and Sylvie Lormand.

“His was a world where success is something won under the hardest of circumstances, where ideas are turned into action and where the Canadian forces seek to protect and stabilize,” said Brig.-Gen. Vance.

“Rest in peace brother Patrick.”

The latest incident happened one week after another powerful blast hit an armoured vehicle in the same area, killing 36-year-old Major Yannick Pepin and Corporal Jean-François Drouin, 31.

Both men were members of the 5 Combat Engineer Regiment and were stationed in Valcartier, Que.

Pte. Lormand is the 12th soldier killed during the current rotation.

A few days ago, the Chief of Canada's Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk had been urging soldiers here to be careful and not to let down their guard as their tour came to an end.

The IED has become the weapon of choice for the Taliban for more than two years. Seventy-one of the 130 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan have died from IED strikes. Since April of 2007 – 62 of the 85 Canadian deaths were the result of improvised explosive devices, which are cheap and easy to make.

Additional American troops help Canadians win Afghans' trust

2009-09-14T01:22:00.000-04:00

Canada's Chief of Defence Staff General Walt Natynczyk welcomes the addition of American reinforcements in Southern Afghanistan. For three years, one battalion of Canadian troops has been holding back Taliban militants while trying to win the Afghans' trust. Spread so thin, securing the area has taken precedence over helping the Afghans work their land to support themselves. With the addition of seven American battalions to the area in 2009 plus a brigade of the Afghan army and growing ranks of Afghan police, NATO troops can allocate more help to local communities in rebuilding their roads, schools and economy. Despite severe losses, Canadian troops still believe in their mission. They can see their efforts have brought improvements despite the Taliban insurgency, which continues to threaten their day-to-day security. To quit Afghanistan before it has sufficient government forces and police to sustain itself would be to mock all those comrades who have sacrificed their lives over the past seven years. Canadian troops are determined those they have lost will not have died in vain.

Canada to stage MOCK Afghan attack in Washington

2009-09-07T05:58:00.005-04:00

UPDATE:
Sept. 14, 2009 -- Defence Minister orders Canadian embassy in Washington to cut blasts from Afghan war showcase.

The Canadian embassy in Washington plans to build a faux Afghan village in the embassy courtyard, populated by Afghan actors, and set of fake IEDs, in an effort to show American opinion makers how Canadian Forces are doing all they can to win the war in Afghanistan. Scheduled IED attacks set for at noon and 2 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2009.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canada-to-stage-mock-afghan-attack-in-washington/article1275341/
On Sunday, September 6, 2009, two more Canadian soldiers have been killed in action on a road southwest of Kandahar by a roadside bomb blast: 36-year-old Maj. Yannick Pepin and Cpl. Jean-Francois Drouin, 21. To see the HONOR ROLL of FALLEN CANADIAN TROOPS in Afghanistan to date, please scroll down the right-hand sidebar.

Roadside bombs kill two Canadian combat engineers

2009-08-03T11:21:00.005-04:00

Two young Canadian combat engineers lost their lives to IEDs while checking out another explosion Sunday, August 2, 2009. Cpl. Sapper Matthieu Allard and Cpl. Christian Bobbitt (in photo) of the 5th Combat Engineers Regiment, 2e Batallion of the Royal 22e Regiment, based in Valcartier, Que., were clearing roads of deadly improvised explosive devices to open the way for Afghans to travel to work more freely.

The two lads, the youngest casualties to date, were caught in a lethal refinement of the Taliban's hallmark IED attacks, where two bombs are detonated in succession – one to stop the convoy, the second designed to kill the troops after they emerge from their armored vehicle. A third soldier was also seriously injured but is now in stable condition and expected to survive.

Bobbit was known for his sense of humor. Major Yannick Pepin, commanding officer of 51 Field Engineer Squadron said, “He made disagreeable situations agreeable.”

In response to a remark made by Bobbit's aunt to the press that the young corporal had grown disillusioned with the mission, another soldier with two tours behind him commented in the Globe & Mail: "The majority of people in Afghanistan voted for its current democratic government. That government has requested NATO's help in trying to maintain a secure and stable environment so the government can continue to operate. Nothing is perfect, but I assure you, if NATO left, there would be no freedom or democracy in Afghanistan. As a side note, not once was I ever lied to as to what we were doing in Afghanistan. As an infantry soldier with 2 tours, I was fully informed as to what we were there to accomplish and how difficult it would be."

A Bloody July for NATO in Afghanistan

2009-07-21T20:28:00.004-04:00

Another Canadian soldier has died in Afghanistan. He tripped on a land mine and the blast catapulted him down a mountain cliff where he fell to his death. Private Sébastien Courcy, 26, died around 6 a.m. Kandahar time, while taking part in military operations in the Panjwai district, about 17 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city. Pte. Courcy was a member of the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment - known as the Vandoos - based in Valcartier, Que., and had arrived in Afghanistan in April. He was serving in the battalion's battle group. Born in St-Hyacinthe, just east of Montreal,. Pte. Courcy enlisted with the Canadian Forces in 2006. He was completing his first tour of duty in Afghanistan. He leaves his mother, Ginette Courcy, and sister, Julie.

July has been a deadly month for NATO troops in general, with at least 47 soldiers killed so far, including 24 Americans and 15 Britons. The spike is due, in part, to a massive U.S.-led operation in Helmand province, Kandahar's neighbour to the west and the opium poppy-producing capital of the world. Some 20,000 U.S. Marines are in, or on their way to, Afghanistan as part of U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy shift in Washington's anti-terrorism campaign.

...Report from the THE GLOBE AND MAIL

2009-07-18T15:59:00.002-04:00

FROM CANADIAN PRESS

Cpl. Martin Joannette, one of two Canadian soldiers who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan 12 days ago, was remembered today at a ceremony at CFB Valcartier, where he served with 3e Bataillon, Royal 22e Regiment. Joanette was a native of St-Calixte, a town some 70 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

Joannette died alongside Master Cpl. Pat Audet, 38, when their helicopter crashed on takeoff in the Zabul province of Afghanistan.

Audet's funeral took place on Thursday, also in Valcartier. Joanette and Audet were the 123rd and 124th Canadian soldiers to die in Afghanistan.
A British soldier was also killed in the crash, and three other Canadian Forces members were injured in the accident, one of them seriously.

Canadian soldier wounded June 23 dies

2009-07-05T15:14:00.005-04:00

Master-Corporal Charles-Philippe Michaud, 28, has died in a military hospital in Germany. He never regained consciousness after stepping on a mine in the Panjwaii district in Afghanistan June 23, 2009.

Col. Jean Marc Lanthier, commander of the 5th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, says Michaud served as a mentor to his fellow troops and was a model soldier. Michaud is survived by his wife, his parents and a brother.

Roadside bomb kills Canadian soldier CBC interviewed on Canada Day

2009-07-03T23:06:00.005-04:00

Another IED has killed a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan and wounded five in his armoured vehicle. Cpl. Nick Bulger, 3rd Battalion in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton, was part of a "close-protection force" guarding the Canadian senior commander of NATO coalition forces in Kandahar province, Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance. Vance, in the vehicle ahead, was returning from visiting American troops under his command in an intensely occupied insurgency district 60 kilometers west of Kandahar city and narrowly missed being hit in the same blast.

Cpl. Bulger, a 30-year-old father of two daughters, came from Peterborough, Ontario. On July 1st, Canada Day, he appeared in a CBC interview and said that once you look in the eyes of the local children, you know you are fighting for the right reasons.

On Friday, one American soldier was also killed in a major offensive by more than 5,000 American troops invading the Taliban-infested area further south of the NATO zone. Carrying full pack and gear, they are fighting in deadly heat of more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Seen here is 2nd U.S. Marine Expeditionary Brigade Commanding Officer and Brigadier General Larry Nicholson shaking hands with an Afghan child during patrols in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

Canadian combat engineer dies defusing roadside bomb

2009-06-15T10:30:00.005-04:00

Corporal Martin Dubé, 35, died as he dismantled one of two improvised explosive devices he was trying to defuse exploded in a high traffic area in the Panjwayii district southwest of Kandahar City. Cpl. Dubé is the second Canadian Forces soldier killed within a week by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during missions intended to neutralize them. The blast also killed an Afghan police officer and wounded a Pashto interpreter, who was rushed by helicopter to hospital.

In losing his life, Cpl. Dubé saved many civilians.

Back to the Highway to Heroes for another fallen soldier

2009-06-09T12:03:00.006-04:00

Pte. Alexandre Péloquin, 20, died in a blast in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan on Monday, April 8, 2009. The Toronto Star newspaper reports he called his mother in Quebec a few days before to tell her this incredible observation. "I have never seen anything so beautiful as Afghanistan."

Pélo, as he was nicknamed, is another example of a young man who always wanted to join the military and in his teen years was a cadet while in high school in Lachute, Quebec.

Andrew Chung reports "Péloquin was involved in a six-day operation to find and neutralize improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, senior Commander of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan explained that, in the village of Nakhoney--about 15 kilometers southwest of Kandahar City where insurgents have increased their attacks on Canadian Forces since 2006--Pélo's group removed material for hundreds of these IEDs and succeeded in removing 15 before he was killed. None of the others suffered injuries.

Pte. Péloquin was a member of the 3rd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, based at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier near Quebec City.

RECENT AMERICAN DEATHS
A week ago Monday, THE TORONTO STAR's South Asia Bureau Chief Rick Westhead reports four American soldiers were also killed by roadside bombs outside Kabul. The bomb blew their armored Humvees into the air. A few days later, three more patrols were bombed but no one was killed. The Americans are finding new efforts to win hearts in local villages are greeting resistance, partly because the locals see American commanders are not treating their Afghan soldiers with the same respect as their own troops. For instance, while U.S. troops live in wooden cabins (with two to three per room) on base, "Afghan troops live together in a single canvas tent, exposed to bone-rattling winds whipping off the nearby mountains." Though this treatment is a result of finding some Afghan soldiers had been stealing from American troops, U.S. Sgt.-Maj. Dewayne Backmon notes: "This war isn't going to be won on technology. We need to be doing a better job relationship building."

Lest We Forget
"... They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."
(Laurence Binyon's "For The Fallen" was published 21 September 1914)
Submitted by MacGregrrrr at 6:49 AM to THE TORONTO STAR Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Mysterious Death of Canadian Officer 118th in Afghanistan

2009-04-24T08:21:00.009-04:00

Major Michelle Mendes, an Intelligence officer with the Canadian Forces, has died under mysterious circumstances in her room at Kandahar Air Field. This was her second deployment. She was assigned to Task Force Kandahar, Canada's headquarters operation. In 2001, she graduated from the Royal Military College in Kingston and was married to Victor Mendes, the soccer coach at RMC. In her first deployment in 2006, she was wounded and returned home with a number of soldiers caught in a friendly fire incident when a U.S. aircraft mistook them for Taliban forces and strafed them.

According to the Globe & Mail newspaper, "Maj. Mendes' death comes less than two months after Defence Minister Peter McKay announced a $21-million plan to deliver better care to Canadian soldiers who are suffering from physical or mental wounds, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The plan was a response to a damning report released last December by the military's ombudsman who slammed the government for being slow to implement better care for soldiers suffering operational stress injuries — a need flagged in 2002. The military is still struggling with the stigma their culture attaches to mental health problems."

Canadian Soldier Growing Grass in Afghanistan

2009-03-25T15:58:00.002-04:00

AWESOME -- God Bless Him !!!

Here is a picture of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan with his tiny "plot" of grass in front of his tent. It's heartwarming! He asked his wife to send him dirt (Canadian soil), fertilizer, and some grass seed so he could smell the sweet aroma of grass and feel it grow beneath his feet.

When the men of his squadron have a mission they are going on, they take turns walking through the grass and the Canadian soil -- to bring them good luck. If you notice, he is even cutting the grass with a pair of a scissors.

Sometimes we are in such a hurry that we don't stop and think about the little things that we take for granted. Upon receiving this, please say a prayer for our Canadian soldiers that give and give and, yes, sacrifice their lives so unselfishly for us.

Calling ALL Canadians--RED SHIRT DAY

2009-03-24T23:11:00.008-04:00

This post was contributed by a friend who is circulating the invitation to join in recognition of our Canadian troops. It has passed through so many hands that I don't know if anyone knows who the originator of the idea was. BT

Red Fridays.

"Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Canadians who support our troops used to be called the 'silent majority.' We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.

"Many Canadians, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of Canadians supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded Canadian who supports our men and women afar, will wear something red.

"By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make Canada on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming Hockey game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family, it will not be long before Canada is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once 'silent' majority is on their side more than ever.

"The first thing a soldier says when asked 'What can we do to make things better for you?' is 'We need your support and your prayers.' Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something red every Friday."

You can buy red T-shirts at your local legion hall. BT

The Hero’s Heroine

2009-03-09T23:35:00.004-04:00

Soldier’s widow believes in his mission.

Mishelle Brown, widow of Warrant Officer Dennis Raymond Brown recently killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, made her husband proud, though it was from beyond the grave. She responded to Prime Minister Harper’s comments on CNN that Canadian and other foreign armies can’t beat the Taliban.

“We may not be able to beat the Taliban. There’s lots of things in our life we can’t beat— obesity, child pornography, crime. But do you give up? Do you stop? Absolutely not,” Mishelle Brown said. “One person can’t make a difference. But if we band together, we can.”

In response to those who want to pull our troops out of Afghanistan, retired General Lewis Mackenzie said in his Globe & Mail column that Prime Minister Harper was not making a political statement when he said we can’t beat the Taliban. He stated a fact. “Insurgencies rarely totally disappear. The objective is to reduce them to a manageable scale where they have little impact on the day-to-day lives of the victim country’s population. Much like organized crime in a large American city – or, for that matter, a Canadian city, given the influence of street gangs in the past decade. Violent crime exists, and there are areas in some cities you should avoid; but the level of crime does not cause the average citizen to ask: ‘For safety’s sake, perhaps the better option is to join the bad guys.’

“The objective in a counterinsurgency is to isolate the insurgents from the support they coerce from the general population through fear and intimidation and to cause their influence to be irrelevant. While the military has a key role to play in achieving this isolation, opportunistic and even frequent victories over the insurgents will not, on their own, guarantee ‘victory’.”

We all need to remember: without the dedication of our troops, we would not enjoy the freedom to debate whether we do bring them home or not.

Postscript: Today another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb, Trooper Marc Diab, 22, an immigrant young man from Lebanon who had every reason to live yet proudly served in the Canadian Armed Forces. Diab's death brings our total to 112. Four of his comrads were wounded, three seriously, and they will be flown to Germany and then home to Canada. They too need our prayers for healing along with prayers for comfort for Diab's family.

Down the Highway of Heroes again

2009-03-04T20:06:00.005-05:00

Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper has announced three more Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.

Warrant Officer Dennis Raymond Brown, a reservist from the Lincoln and Welland Regiment in the Niagara Region, Corporal Danny Oliver Fortin from the 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bagotville, Que., and Corporal Kenneth Chad O’Quinn from the 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group Headquarters and Signals Squadron in Petawawa, Ont., were killed when the vehicle in which they were riding ran over a bomb.

Part of what is called the Quick Reaction Force established to respond to all types of emergencies, including roadside bombs, the men were returning from a successful mission to clear a bomb that had been planted in a road. They took that bomb out of the ground but ran over another on their return trip.

The deaths bring the Canadian toll in Afghanistan to 111 and points to the growing strength of the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency.

Top Ten Humanitarian Crises in 2008

2009-01-30T23:27:00.012-05:00

I just received my latest e-bulletin from Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), whom I have supported since I saw their work in Rwanda in 1994. It lists the top ten humanitarian crises in the world during 2008. The saddest thing to learn is that millions of malnourished children are left untreated despite advances in life-saving nutritional therapy.

Well-meaning philanthropists, such as one who loaded a ship with chocolate bars for Rwandan orphans in 1994 and the chocolate melted on board, fail to understand the true needs of starving children who cannot tolerate sudden bounties of rich western food. They only make the children sicker, and they die faster.

According to Doctors Without Borders: "At any given moment, 20 million children are suffering from the most deadly form of severe acute malnutrition and up to five million children under five years of age die each year of complications related to malnutrition.

"Of the tens of millions of children who do receive assistance, international food aid and nutrition programs have had limited impact in preventing their downward spiral into life-threatening malnutrition."

Why? "This failure is due to assistance programs built on foods that are nutritionally inappropriate to rehabilitate malnourished children. The main foods—fortified blended flours made from either corn or wheat plus soya —DO NOT meet the minimum nutritional needs of the most vulnerable children between six and 24 months."

What is needed? Doctors Without Borders advocate governments and international agencies adjust the products in food aid to better meet the needs of the people it aims to help by providing child-appropriate foods of high nutritional value such as supplemental ready-to-use foods (RUF).

Unfortunately, just slightly more than seven per cent of these severely malnourished children actually receive the UN-recommended treatment with nutrient-dense therapeutic foods.

In recent years, advances in nutritional therapies for the severest forms of malnutrition have allowed Doctors Without Borders and other aid agencies to successfully demonstrate that severely malnourished children can recover rapidly by taking a short course of therapeutic RUF that mothers can provide at home. Doctors Without Borders, alone, has treated more than 300,000 malnourished children over the past 2 years in 22 countries.

These energy-dense dairy-containing pastes and biscuits are high-quality foods that deliver the nutrition children need for catch-up growth and to ward off infection. Community-based and outpatient feeding programs have the potential to treat millions of malnourished children using RUFs.

We can make this happen. Think about it. Every day we are beseiged by charities all claiming to do wonderous works around the world--many of them do what they claim, but I saw how Doctors Without Borders administer the most vanquished at great risk. They often remain in areas other non-government agencies desert. To support them is to see your dollar make a real difference in the lives they save.

Go directly to the web site for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) here.

TOP TEN HUMANITARIAN CRISES IN 2008
Darfur
Ethiopia
Sudan
Somalia
Sri Lanka
Democratic Republic of Congo
Iraq
Pakistan
Myanmar
Zimbabwe

Violence Begets Violence

2009-01-10T13:59:00.008-05:00

Two days after I have supported Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza, I am deeply saddened by the reports of hundreds of children killed in the bombings. Children are the powerless victims of an adult world gone mad. There is no justification for the slaughter and maiming of children. They are not responsible for the deeds of their parents or governments.

I remember in Rwanda in 1994 when Canadian peacekeepers discovered an orphanage where the Hutus had hacked off the feet and hands of Tutsi children so they could not grow up to retaliate against them. Witnessing this, the peacekeepers wondered, "How can we teach peace to children like these, who have every reason to grow up to hate those who crippled them?"

We have the same dilemma in the Middle East. Mansoor Riaz of Bellevue, Washington, writes in today's Toronto Star newspaper: "Civilian casualties, Israeli or Palestinian, are utterly unacceptable especially if civilians are specifically targeted. While Israel continues this brutal campaign, it will not only garner ill will internationally, but also engender more hostility from Palestinians and ensure the continuation of this conflict."

Whether civilians are targets or "colateral damage," their sacrifice is not justifiable even when terrorists use them as shields. Canadian Sharmin Rahman of Toronto makes an excellent point in his Letter to the Editor in the Toronto Star: "More than 600 Palestinians have died in this conflict alone, but only 130 were Hamas fighters. The gains Israel is making now will be over-shadowed by the devastation it is causing. And that will leave Palestinians susceptible to recruitment by groups like Hamas in future. Who else will help feed their starving families or give the homeless shelter, as Israel continues to keep a stranglehold over Gaza's borders? If Israel actually assisted the Palestinian people in rising out of their poverty and grief-stricken existence, then their reliance on Hamas would be greatly diminished."

In Israel, there are Jews who want to live in peace with their Arab brethren, who deplore the war between them. What propels the Middle East conflict forward are the radicals filled with hate on both sides. "An eye for an eye." The healing power of love and forgiveness escapes them.

President-Elect Obama has said that, if bombs were dropped in his backyard and threatened his daughters, he would retaliate. Many Israeli citizens have blamed their government for the helpless fear their children feel. Towns and some cities in Israel have endured rocket attacks day after day for years, though only four civilian deaths have been reported over this time as a direct result. Rather, it's been a prolonged nightmare of shattered nerves. The threat is always real. The possibility of death immediate. Whole communities suffer from sleep deprivation as those rocket attacks rain down on them. The Israeli government has decided, "Enough is enough."

But, at what price? What is achieved if the result is perpetual hate, between generation after generation of Jews and Arabs?

A dear Canadian friend, John Smyth of St. Catharines, reminds me that, regardless of our feelings about the crisis between Israel and their Palestinian and Arab nerighbors, there is an overriding fact goading the antogonists, and he sent me this quote by Benjamin Netanyahu: "If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

Is it not time to seek a path to peace, to deflate the Arabs' hate-filled desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? But how, when extremist Arab and Muslim leaders brainwash their young people with a call for Jihad and death to all non-believers? John further reminds me that Jews do not teach their children how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Arabs and other non-Jews; that not one single Jew has destroyed a church in protest against the razing of European synagogues or the genocide in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Right now, "turning the other cheek" spells suicide for Israel, but leaving in its wake slaughtered children in Gaza maligns its justification in the court of world opinion.

In despair, I have no answer. I only know violence begets violence.

Intolerable Terrorism

2009-01-08T11:10:00.008-05:00

The media and lesser knowledgeable people give Arab terrorists far too much credence in the Gaza conflict.

As casualties mount, we tend to identify with the deemed victims rather than look at the underlying malignancy causing the conflict. Two columnists clarify what is happening in Gaza, and I quote them in part because they express what needs to be remembered before we condemn the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Ian O’Doherty provides a unique Irish perspective based on his years in Israel. “But there's a bigger picture here, something which Israelis have been trying to broadcast to the world, but which, thanks to their spectacular inability to accurately and sympathetically portray their point of view, has not been properly transmitted. It's this -- Israel is the front line of the war between democracy and Islamic fascism.

“Would you rather live in a society with a free press, equal rights for women -- and anyone who knows an Israeli woman will know that they're not easily suppressed, anyway -- equal rights for gay people and a proud and stubborn belief in the right of the individual to lead their life in the way that they see fit or would you rather exist in a society where women who dare to speak their mind are executed, where gay people are not just shunned but murdered and where having a dissenting thought marks you out for death?

“The civilian deaths in Gaza are to be mourned, and anyone who says otherwise is reprehensible. But in a sick and twisted irony, they are mourned more by Israelis than by Hamas, who know that every dead Palestinian kid is worth another piece of propaganda.

“Here in the West, where we share the same values as Israel, we need to start standing shoulder with this tiny oasis of democracy in a vast desert of savagery. To do otherwise is moral cowardice of the most repugnant kind.”

The New York Post’s Ralph Peters looks at the Arabs’ resentment of Jews, thus giving another dimension to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
“Islamist extremists and Western leftists want every Jew dead. But Israel’s greatest crime was to expose the global cult of victimhood, to prove that hard work, fortitude and courage could overcome even history’s grimmest disaster. Was it a crime to hand Gaza back to Palestinian authorities, to give peace a chance? Look what Israel received in return for trading land for peace. Let us never forget the fundamental truth that, while Israel longs to live in peace with its neighbors, those neighbors openly profess the desire to eliminate Israel and exterminate its people.

“A crucial point about interfaith and interethnic conflicts that we sheltered Americans refuse to understand is that, all too often, there’s just no good solution -- and not even a bad solution, short of acts of barbarism. It’s a rare conflict that results in an enduring peace. Unintended consequences abound. At times, you fight just to buy time, to gain breathing space -- or merely to frustrate an enemy's designs for a limited period. That’s the situation Israel faces: No hope of an ultimate victory, but a constant fight to survive.

“We may sympathize with the average Palestinian family, exploited by generations of corrupt leaders and now caught in yet another round of violence. But let us never forget that Israel hasn’t fired thousands of blind rockets into Palestinian cities, that Israeli suicide bombers don’t attack Arab restaurants and bus stops, and that Israel seeks to avoid harming civilians -- while Hamas seeks to kill as many civilians as possible. In a world where there are no good answers, Israel just answered as best it could. The world’s response? ‘How dare Jews defend themselves.’ Humanity doesn't progress. It just changes clothes.”

We must also remember that Jews, by their tenet to debate their laws and mores in light of the greatest wisdom interpreted for their times, have been the greatest defenders of democracy throughout their history and ours. For this, we should seek to understand why they have had enough and are taking action against the Hamas terrorists who have attacked their cities and villages for years unimpeded. Now it seems the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon are creating a second front. Unfortunately, simple loving Palestinians are also victims of the terrorists among them who are determined to crush Israel. It is a dilemma that cannot be taken at face value. If Israel falls, so does the whole free world.

Highway to Heroes

2008-12-31T16:42:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, Canada welcomed home more of her war heroes. Over Christmas we have lost four more in Afghanistan--total 107 (as of Jan. 9, 2009). As I stood on the Bennett Road bridge near our community, it was heart rending to see such a long line of hearses and black limos carrying families of the fallen soldiers--the longest to date. Now people line the highway as well as the bridges and more and more young people are turning out with their parents and friends. When Americans think of Canadians, I wonder if you understand what passionate people we are. Unlike the peacekeepers' experience in Rwanda in 1994--and mine--where we came home to absolute ignorance and apparent apathy on the public's part, everyone supports our troops and their families. Canadians understand the sacrifice and want the families of those who have died for their country to feel the love and care of their fellow citizens. I only wish there was some way we could show tributes to the wounded and their families--for the wounded and injured far outnumber the dead. The story about the HIghway to Heroes is shown on video here:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2008/11/11/7372241.html

As we welcome in the new year--2009, it's hard to imagine that the Americans have been fighting in Iraq and our Canadian armed forces together with the Coalition, which also includes American troops, have been in Afghanistan longer than we were overseas in WWII. And still there is no end in sight to the fighting. Now Israel has decided it too is not tolerating continual rocket attacks and war in Gaza seems imminent. We long for peace--for all peoples, yet it seems further and further down a long tunnel where no light beckons. At least as the clock ticks down at midnight, there will be a momentary pause for us all to be as one in our wish for peace, love and safe keeping. Happy New Year!

Rwanda's Orphans

2008-12-24T10:19:00.003-05:00

In 1994, on my last day in Central Africa, we had just delivered humanitarian relief from the Red Cross for the refugee camps near the interational airport in Goma, Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo), and I had a chance to ask the African Director of UNICEF what he needed most. He replied, "Logisiticians. We never have enough."

Logistics can be as simple as driving personnel to camps and bringing back children/people who need hospital care to planning and directing airlifts for humanitarian relief. The newer term for logistics is supply chain management...moving supplies and cargo from point A to point B and then Point C through to Point G. The key requirement is co-ordination to make sure the delivery arrives on time, and this involves computer technology from preparing bills of lading and customs documents to keeping track of cargo that crosses many borders.

President Obama talked about the need for people to serve their country. Most often we immediately think of the military, but what we once called the "peace corps" (but are now non-goverment organizations such as UNICEF) desperately need young people to volunteer their services. In Rwanda in 1994, our Canadian peacekeepers supported one orphanage south of the capital Kigali--they rebuilt the convent and flew in specialists to help the children who survived after their arms and/or feet had been hacked off learn how to carry on with artificial limbs--and when they were recalled home, handed this project over to the Christian Children's Fund headquartered in Ottawa. Such non-government organizations (NGOs) need personnel even more today.

When the global economy regains stability, one area of business that is always looking for experienced and resourceful employees is the logistics division of any corporation or transportation/freight forwarding company. Since logistics is the backbone of business, it's a career with a future. Working for NGOs provides young people with the background that attracts employment for they gain priceless experience in team dynamics as well as on-the-spot problem solving, not to mention logistics skills and the satisfaction of knowing that, for a few short months or years, they made a great difference in many people's lives. No school or university can teach more valuable lessons in life.

Example of Roadside Bomb Attacks on Canadian Convoys in Afghanistan

2008-12-23T22:44:00.009-05:00

In the past ten days, six Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have been killed by IED (roadside bomb) attacks on highways west of Kandahar. Today this convoy was in another close call. This video helps you experience what they experience. (As of Dec. 30, 2008, three more Canadian casualties have been announced plus four wounded.)

BEWARE ANTI-MALARIA DRUG--MEFLOQUINE--still being issued to troops.

2008-12-23T14:22:00.001-05:00

In 1994, the president of my publishing company assigned me to cover the humanitarian relief effort following the Rwandan genocide. My article became a tribute to the overlooked logistics industry for its part in making such efforts the success they are, but I also stepped into the mire of the anti-malaria drug scandal.

Cpl. Scott Smith, a peacekeeper I interviewed, later committed suicide on Christmas Eve, 1994, in Rwanda—two months before his tour of duty was up. He was coming home to a fantastic job, and in my interviews and regular talks with him, I was impressed with his upbeat, resourceful attitude. I have dealt with despondent people and know their skill for covering depression. Scott showed none of the signs, but he did talk about the terrible nightmares and diarrhea he was having especially on the days the troops took their weekly Mefloquine pill. He had endured these side effects in deployments to the Gulf War and Somalia as well. (You start taking the pill one week in advance of visiting a tropical area and for four weeks following your return.) For this assignment, the cameraman and I were also issued Mefloquine (Lariam®).

When flying on the armed forces transports delivering supplies to the refugee camps in Goma, Zaire, the pilots joked about not being on Mefloquine because “you can’t have pilots hallucinating in the air.” According to a report from the National Defence Department in Ottawa for the Somalia Enquiry, “some Canadian Forces pilots and divers received another anti-malarial drug, Doxycycline, because Mefloquine was thought to cause dizziness and loss of fine motor control in some users. The post-deployment report of the HMCS Preserver, for example, stated that all aircrew on active flying duties used Doxycycline. The report also noted that several CF members who suffered adverse effects from taking Mefloquine were switched to Doxycycline.”

The peacekeepers described the designated day their companies took Mefloquine as Manic Monday, Loco Tuesday, Wacky Wednesday, Psycho Thursday or Freaky Friday. On these days, military stats show the rate of vehicle accidents rose. There are now medical papers available describing the dangers of mixing alcohol with Mefloquine, and Scott was naturally drinking on that Christmas Eve in celebration of his going home soon. He loved being in Rwanda and helping the people who were so appreciative of the Canadians who stayed behind and risked their lives to bring world attention to the genocide being executed in Rwanda at a rate much higher and more efficiently than any organized genocide previously committed, even by the Nazis.

I was only on Mefloquine nine weeks, but just that short time created a state of insomnia that began in Rwanda and lasted six months until sleep deprivation weakened my immune system and I collapsed with pneumonia. Then I was heavily drugged so I could sleep. Fourteen years later, I am lucky if I get five hours solid sleep per night, and for seven years, my thyroid had to be monitored because it showed strange scar-like damage. I constantly fluctuated between hyper- and hypothyroidism, so doctors were never sure what treatment course to take. Instead of doing the wrong thing, they decided to monitor it every three months. Somehow, on my own, my thyroid finally corrected itself and is now working normally. Was it Mefloquine? Others who have taken this drug have suffered serious damage to their livers, hearts and/or thyroids and haven’t healed themselves.

The military in the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia have minimized the dangers of Mefloquine since the U.S. Army asked Roche Labs to create a shot that would prevent soldiers from being infected with one form of malaria they could not treat, and as a result those infected with it often died. Today, the number of troops suffering from the devastating adverse effects from taking Mefloquine far outweighs the danger of any of them dying from this form of malaria.

Yet, U.S. and Canadian forces—probably British and Australian and all coalition forces too, but I don’t have confirmation of that—have issued Mefloquine in Iraq (but have since stopped) and continue to issue it in Afghanistan, despite reported evidence from the Gulf War, Angola relief effort, Somalia and Haiti UN Missions and Rwandan mission, plus other tropical deployments, that a significant number of troops are suffering from debilitating side effects, including suicides and/or aggressive violent behavior that has ended up in murder, usually of family members and, for sure, of spouses.

SOLDIERS FOR THE TRUTH talk about it on their web site. The Canadian National Defence Department finally issued a paper discussing the adverse effects in 1995, but the public didn’t know about it. CTV broadcaster, Christine Neilsen, produced an investigative report on W5 in October 1997. She took the plea of the suicide soldier’s mother seriously to investigate his death because she too had suffered adverse effects from taking Mefloquine on an assignment to Angola. She proved that the Canadian peacekeepers were being used as unwitting guinea pigs for the drug and suggested the true culprit in the Somalia scandal was Mefloquine, which affected the soldiers’ behavior and emotional states. Her research assistant uncovered the signed documents between Health Canada, the Department of National Defence and the drug company. Did the Canadian people rise up in revolt as a result of this scandalous treatment of our armed forces? No, Parliament barely uttered a peep.

We say we support our armed forces, but no one puts the brakes on issuing a drug that decimates our forces faster and more viciously than armed conflict. A British Medical Report sites the number as high as 1 in 10 people suffer adverse effects. They have been observing the results because, of all Western nations, a high proportion of British travelers visit tropical countries where malaria occurs. Canada admits that 1 in 1,000 can be adversely affected. Israel estimates 1 in 100,000. Whatever the ratio really is, it is TOO HIGH. We charge our armed forces with the job of saving our butts, but we don’t raise a finger to protect them from a drug company that has expanded its production of Mefloquine from the States to Pakistan under a different name, and this subsidiary has yet to place adequate warnings on its label to prescription users. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

USER BEWARE:
DOCTOR MICHELLE BRILL-EDWARDS, Canadian drug safety expert from transcript of radio interview with CBC’s Jennifer Westaway, August 26, 2002, 9:45 a.m., Reference NO. 226387-7:
BRILL-EDWARDS: “Well firstly, I should mention that there's a spectrum of what you could... as lay people understand this affects on the brain, or neuro-psychiatric side effects. Some of these are very common, every day problems that are not so severe, things like disturbed sleep, terrible dreams and so forth. But the more severe end of that spectrum of effects on the brain are actual psychosis, what we call acute psychosis, which, in lay terms, would be going crazy, someone who is out of touch with reality and whose actions can be bizarre. In particular, a big concern had been unexplained feelings of suicide and homicide.”
BRILL-EDWARDS: “Usually, there's a very strict order to not use this drug with alcohol. And the U.S. military has a good track record of trying to keep their military men dry in the field of battle. But once they return home, of course, then that restriction is off and alcohol may become a question. And we know that the drug lasts for a very long time in the body and this mixture may be lethal.”
BRILL-EDWARDS: “There is one study done by the military that was a carefully-done study that watched military men taking the drug in the field and they were seen weekly. And it's a very interesting point that in that study, two men had to be withdrawn from the study because of suicidal ideation.”
WESTAWAY: “What military was this?”
BRILL-EDWARDS: “This was the American military. And interestingly, of the 203 - I think it was - men in the study who had Mefloquine doses use in prophylaxis, two developed suicidal ideation. That would suggest that we're dealing with a serious psychiatric side-effect rate that is in the order of one in 100, not one in 12,000. . . . It changes the whole balance of whether and when this drug should be used in comparison with other drugs.”

For more information, you can visit BOWDENS MEDIA MONITORING LTD. online.

WE ARE ALL VICTIMS OF WAR

2008-12-23T13:28:00.004-05:00

No war is a good war. At times, we have acted no better than our worst enemy. We are not blameless. We denied the Holocaust, for instance, choosing instead not to believe the evidence, which mounted. Again we denied the genocide in Rwanda, choosing not to believe what was happening. And still we close our eyes and ears to the ongoing atrocities and slaughter in Africa--Darfur, the Congo--and elsewhere around the world.

What is worse, war has not stopped the struggle for wealth and control. Secret wars still go on behind political posturing, each world power seeking intelligence it can use against the other, manipulating events, and in the end, creating more terror and worse horrors for the innocent who never know why they’ve been sacrificed, or for what cause. And now with an economic depression compressing the world, more and more suffering is brought to bear on everyone, everywhere.

And then there are the lives of the men and women we sacrifice in our military forces in the interest of preserving our freedom(s) at home. They believe in their missions and their fellow soldier. It's difficult not to when your boots are on the ground and you, with your buddy beside you, can see that you are the only ones making a difference in someone else's life. That's the hook that keeps aid volunteers and military forces continually in harm's way. They see how much their care matters.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all victims of war--whether here or abroad, whether political or economical, while greed races to accumulate more power. Right now, dreams of peace and hope grow ever dimmer for a great portion of humanity as we circle our wagons to protect our own. Instead of reaching out, we turn in. It's the nature of survival.