OTTAWA — A Canadian who served with U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan is to receive an American bravery medal.
Grant Derrick, a duel Canadian-American citizen, will receive the Silver Star on Friday for his part in a 14-hour battle in Hendon village, an isolated community east of Kabul.
The former Ottawa man, a member of the U.S. army special forces, was part of a raid in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan last spring. The action saw two commandos killed and three badly wounded.
Derrick, a 31-year-old retired staff-sergeant, was a member of Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, based in North Carolina.
A medic who spent most of his life in Canada until joining the U.S. army in 2003, Derrick is credited with saving the life of an Afghan commando shot in the face as the force swept into a Taliban weapons depot May 4.
He was carrying the wounded platoon sergeant — Sami Ullah — through an open patch of ground hoping for a medical evacuation helicopter when Taliban and foreign fighters in the hills above pinned them down.
The Afghan soldier was hit a second time laying on the stretcher and Derrick shielded the man with his own body, treating his wounds, as bullets whizzed around them for more than 20 minutes.
“I knew that he got hit. I could feel the jolt in the litter,” Derrick said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“I thought to myself, at first, there’s no way this guy got shot again. Poor bastard. He already got shot in the face, now he gets shot again.”
They managed to take cover behind a pile of rocks.
Derrick was hit in the foot before the other commandos rallied to get them out of the open.
The village was surrounded by hundreds of Taliban who dug in to the steep mountains, amid dozens of well-hidden caves and spider holes. They poured down machine gun, AK-47 and sniper fire.
“It was coming down like a heavy rain. I’d never seen anything like it.”
The wounded soldier survived and his rescuers got to the landing zone just as two helicopters took off. The U.S. soldier directing aircraft on the ground, one of Derrick’s colleagues, had to beg for another flight.
A combat search-and-rescue CH-47 Chinook swept in under heavy fire and dropped its ramp, allowing Derrick to get the wounded man aboard.
“Everybody, every one of the guys, deserved a Silver Star that day. I just happened to be lucky enough to get one,” he said.
Two Afghan commandos died that day. Throughout the assault, U.S. helicopters and warplanes pounded the mountain sides in support of the beleaguered force.
Derrick, who left the army on Jan. 31, will receive the Silver Star and a Purple Heart at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Derrick says he considers himself Canadian, despite having fought with the Americans, and that Ottawa is still home because his parents and friends are there.
The Canadian Press
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, December 24, 2010
CHRISTMAS AT ORTONA - 1943
Bill Twatio, National Post · Thursday, Dec. 23, 2010
As Christmas 1943 approached, Canadians read in the newspapers of a fierce battle being fought by their troops in Italy for "a key Adriatic port."
That port was Ortona, a picturesque place dominated by the cathedral of San Tommaso and a castle perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. The town had boasted a pre-war population of 10,000, but few were left by the winter of 1943.
Neither the Germans nor the Allies considered Ortona an important military target. But the more Ortona was defended, the more bitterly it was attacked. As one Canadian military historian put it: "The struggle for Ortona assumed a public relations importance out of all proportion to its military significance."
Since mid-July, the 1st Canadian Division, part of Montgomery's Eighth Army, had been slogging through Sicily and southern Italy, Churchill's "soft underbelly of Europe." "It is going to be one of the greatest marches in history," an enthusiastic civilian in Cairo told the American novelist Irwin Shaw, then a sergeant in Mark Clark's Fifth Army. "A long narrow green country, full of handsome people who have been enslaved for 20 years and now are being liberated and know it. You will be greeted like water in the desert, like a circus on the Fourth of July, like Clark Gable at Vassar."
That was news to the footsore Canadians. It had been very tough going indeed, but they had at least maintained some sense of freedom of movement. Now, as they closed on Ortona, the front became crowded and confined and conditions brought to mind Ypres and the Somme of the First World War.
To reach Ortona, the Canadians had to cross a deep gully to gain the Orsogna-Ortona highway. The Germans would contest every step of the way through a tangled wilderness of wire and vine, mud, ruined farmhouses and mangled trees, reeking with the stench of cordite and decomposing bodies. "What followed was what men dream about in after years, waking in a cold sweat to a surge of gratitude that it was only a dream," Farley Mowat, an officer with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment wrote. "It was a delirium of sustained violence."
The battle for Ortona itself began on the morning of Dec. 21, 1943, when the Seaforth Highlanders and Loyal Edmonton Regiment moved into the outskirts.
The German paratroopers who held Ortona were determined to keep it. The harbour had been wrecked. Houses were fortified and booby trapped. It became a house-to-house battle of platoons, sections and sub-sections as the troops could not spread out, nor could movement be easily co-ordinated. Covered by Bren guns, two or three men would rush a house, kick in the door and lob grenades.
The Canadians became adept at "mouse-holing," moving under cover from house to house by blasting through the walls. A section might storm its way into a house at the end of a block, clear it to the top, then blow a way through at roof-level into the adjoining house, which it would clear to the bottom. The Germans placed demolition charges beneath the houses in the line of advance, firing them as the Canadians moved in. A platoon of Edmontons was wiped out this way with the exception of a corporal who was pulled out of the ruins after being buried for three days.
A soldier described the battle as "an intimate affair." "You tried a little game," he said. "If it succeeded, your opposite number was dead; if it failed you were dead."
Some companies were soon reduced to a third of their strength as the battle raged through Christmas week. "Four more killing days to Christmas," the troops joked sardonically. "Three more killing days ...."
Christmas Day dawned overcast and cold and the fighting went on. But for the Seaforths there was a brief respite in the ruins of the Church of Santa Maria di Constantinopoli, a Christmas miracle of sorts produced by the regimental quartermaster. Seaforth padre Roy Durnford describes the scene:
"Preparations for Christmas dinner were well advanced when I arrived ... The companies came in rotation ... The men looked tired and drawn, as well they might, and most of those who came directly from the town were dirty and unshaven. 'Well,' I said, 'at last I've got you all in church.' The floor had been cleared and tables set up, and it was a heart-warming sight to see the white table cloths and the chinaware which some of the boys had scrounged from houses we had occupied, and the beer, cigarettes, chocolate bars, nuts, oranges and apples laid out as extras. For the dinner itself, there was soup to start, then roast pork with apple sauce, cauliflower and mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy. Christmas pudding and mince pies for dessert ... Plates were heaped high, as much as any man could eat.
"So the tables filled and emptied and were filled again all day ... What a concert of noise it was! As the sense of relief took hold, the talk became louder, and shouted greetings and jokes were exchanged from one table to another. Up behind the altar, in a ruin of church furnishings, the company cookers hissed and sizzled, and the plates clattered as they were cleared from the tables and piled high on the altar itself ... In one corner, the battle still being in progress, the signal bell would ring urgently and there would be shouted snatches of conversations on the radio sets. Above the din one could hear the chatter of machine-gun fire and the whistling crump of shells landing not far from the church. And through it all the visitors came and went ..."
At each sitting, Padre Durnford held a service with a few short prayers and carol singing. "I have talked with many men in the course of the day, most of them, I'm sure, fearful of what lies ahead, but they are fine men and I know they will give the best that is in them," he said. "My heart grieved to see them turn their faces again to the battle."
Across town, the Germans sheltered in a railway tunnel and sang Silent Night around a Christmas tree decorated with candles.
As Christmas 1943 approached, Canadians read in the newspapers of a fierce battle being fought by their troops in Italy for "a key Adriatic port."
That port was Ortona, a picturesque place dominated by the cathedral of San Tommaso and a castle perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. The town had boasted a pre-war population of 10,000, but few were left by the winter of 1943.
Neither the Germans nor the Allies considered Ortona an important military target. But the more Ortona was defended, the more bitterly it was attacked. As one Canadian military historian put it: "The struggle for Ortona assumed a public relations importance out of all proportion to its military significance."
Since mid-July, the 1st Canadian Division, part of Montgomery's Eighth Army, had been slogging through Sicily and southern Italy, Churchill's "soft underbelly of Europe." "It is going to be one of the greatest marches in history," an enthusiastic civilian in Cairo told the American novelist Irwin Shaw, then a sergeant in Mark Clark's Fifth Army. "A long narrow green country, full of handsome people who have been enslaved for 20 years and now are being liberated and know it. You will be greeted like water in the desert, like a circus on the Fourth of July, like Clark Gable at Vassar."
That was news to the footsore Canadians. It had been very tough going indeed, but they had at least maintained some sense of freedom of movement. Now, as they closed on Ortona, the front became crowded and confined and conditions brought to mind Ypres and the Somme of the First World War.
To reach Ortona, the Canadians had to cross a deep gully to gain the Orsogna-Ortona highway. The Germans would contest every step of the way through a tangled wilderness of wire and vine, mud, ruined farmhouses and mangled trees, reeking with the stench of cordite and decomposing bodies. "What followed was what men dream about in after years, waking in a cold sweat to a surge of gratitude that it was only a dream," Farley Mowat, an officer with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment wrote. "It was a delirium of sustained violence."
The battle for Ortona itself began on the morning of Dec. 21, 1943, when the Seaforth Highlanders and Loyal Edmonton Regiment moved into the outskirts.
The German paratroopers who held Ortona were determined to keep it. The harbour had been wrecked. Houses were fortified and booby trapped. It became a house-to-house battle of platoons, sections and sub-sections as the troops could not spread out, nor could movement be easily co-ordinated. Covered by Bren guns, two or three men would rush a house, kick in the door and lob grenades.
The Canadians became adept at "mouse-holing," moving under cover from house to house by blasting through the walls. A section might storm its way into a house at the end of a block, clear it to the top, then blow a way through at roof-level into the adjoining house, which it would clear to the bottom. The Germans placed demolition charges beneath the houses in the line of advance, firing them as the Canadians moved in. A platoon of Edmontons was wiped out this way with the exception of a corporal who was pulled out of the ruins after being buried for three days.
A soldier described the battle as "an intimate affair." "You tried a little game," he said. "If it succeeded, your opposite number was dead; if it failed you were dead."
Some companies were soon reduced to a third of their strength as the battle raged through Christmas week. "Four more killing days to Christmas," the troops joked sardonically. "Three more killing days ...."
Christmas Day dawned overcast and cold and the fighting went on. But for the Seaforths there was a brief respite in the ruins of the Church of Santa Maria di Constantinopoli, a Christmas miracle of sorts produced by the regimental quartermaster. Seaforth padre Roy Durnford describes the scene:
"Preparations for Christmas dinner were well advanced when I arrived ... The companies came in rotation ... The men looked tired and drawn, as well they might, and most of those who came directly from the town were dirty and unshaven. 'Well,' I said, 'at last I've got you all in church.' The floor had been cleared and tables set up, and it was a heart-warming sight to see the white table cloths and the chinaware which some of the boys had scrounged from houses we had occupied, and the beer, cigarettes, chocolate bars, nuts, oranges and apples laid out as extras. For the dinner itself, there was soup to start, then roast pork with apple sauce, cauliflower and mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy. Christmas pudding and mince pies for dessert ... Plates were heaped high, as much as any man could eat.
"So the tables filled and emptied and were filled again all day ... What a concert of noise it was! As the sense of relief took hold, the talk became louder, and shouted greetings and jokes were exchanged from one table to another. Up behind the altar, in a ruin of church furnishings, the company cookers hissed and sizzled, and the plates clattered as they were cleared from the tables and piled high on the altar itself ... In one corner, the battle still being in progress, the signal bell would ring urgently and there would be shouted snatches of conversations on the radio sets. Above the din one could hear the chatter of machine-gun fire and the whistling crump of shells landing not far from the church. And through it all the visitors came and went ..."
At each sitting, Padre Durnford held a service with a few short prayers and carol singing. "I have talked with many men in the course of the day, most of them, I'm sure, fearful of what lies ahead, but they are fine men and I know they will give the best that is in them," he said. "My heart grieved to see them turn their faces again to the battle."
Across town, the Germans sheltered in a railway tunnel and sang Silent Night around a Christmas tree decorated with candles.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Cpl. Steve Martin is shown in a Canadian military handout photo. Cpl. Martin, 24, from 3rd Battalion Royal 22e Regiment, was killed by an improvised explosive device, or IED, while on foot patrol in Afghanistan, early Saturday afternoon, Dec.18, 2010.
CFB TRENTON, ONT.—The remains of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan just before his 25th birthday will be brought back home Tuesday.
Cpl. Steve Martin, from 3rd Battalion Royal 22e Regiment, was killed by an improvised explosive device while on foot patrol Saturday.
He was going to turn 25 Monday.
Martin arrived for his second tour shortly after burying his grandfather in his hometown of Saint-Cyrille-de-Wendover, about 115 kilometres northeast of Montreal.
Fellow Canadian soldiers bid him farewell Sunday at a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Airfield and the military plane carrying his casket is set to return to Canada on Tuesday.
Dignitaries such as Governor General David Johnston and Defence Minister Peter MacKay are set to attend a repatriation ceremony at 2 p.m. at CFB Trenton in eastern Ontario.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Vets lose tiger in their corner
By PETER WORHTINGTON,Toronto Sun
Last Updated: August 17, 2010 7:22pm
They appointed him as the first veterans’ ombudsman on Remembrance Day 2007, and they’re firing him on Remembrance Day 2010.
“They” is the Harper government, and the ombudsman whose appointment is not being renewed is retired Colonel Pat Stogran, who commanded the first Battle Group (Princess Pats) to serve in Kandahar in 2002.
So why is this exemplary soldier being bounced, whose dedication to the troops is unquestioned? Good question. The answer: Because he took his terms of reference seriously and fought hard and loudly on behalf of veterans.
When the government announced the role in 2007, it said the ombudsman was to be “an impartial, arms-length and independent officer with the responsibility to assist veterans to pursue their concerns and advance their interests.” Pat Stogran seemed a perfect fit. A field commander, somewhat outspoken, he is on record as observing that government tends to regard wounded veterans as accident victims, which is a cop-out and justification for doing little.
As the watchdog on behalf of veterans he’s been relentless, ruffling the feathers of some by his concern for vets who fall through the cracks, are homeless, whose nature is not to complain, but who may be casualties from their service.
Those wounded in war, be it from physical or mental injuries, are special because they were damaged in the name of the country, and their country (or those who run the country) have an obligation to honour their future well-being.
Authorizing a lump sum payment to wounded vets in Afghanistan of some $250,000 instead of long-term pensions, seems more cop-out by government than a gesture of gratitude.
It’s seen as an abdication of future responsibilities, while supposedly compensating veterans for whatever disabilities they have sustained. In other words, they are on their own. That’s a continuing issue of contention in Canada.
If not, it should be. It worries Stogran.
As a battalion field commander, Stogran had a “warrior” mentality that dictated he look after his men, and do what he could on their behalf. With the Princess Patricias in Afghanistan, he won the regiment the respect of American allies, and Canada an esteem that was often missing during the dog-years of passive peacekeeping.
Our efforts in Afghanistan have vaulted Canada back into the ranks of consequence. Canada and its soldiers are taken seriously. But the government seems to be backing off — and the reluctance of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to renew Stogran’s mandate as ombudsman, seems symptomatic of the Canada’s shift away from the military, and Afghanistan.
Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn is hardly a tiger on behalf of vets and is unlikely to defy DND or the PM if they want a noisy advocate like Stogran sidelined and silenced.
If Blackburn were to protest the replacing of Stogran in a manner similar to his protestations when airport security confiscates a bottle of his tequila, perhaps the vets could be assured or a spokesman on their behalf.
To his credit, Stogran is more soldier than politician. A battalion commander is, arguably, the highest rank that thoroughly understands the rank and file.
General officers tend to be more political, with one eye ever-open for promotion. Battalion commanders deal directly with soldiers and the enemy.
Canadian Press says news of Stogran’s dismissal “went off like a bombshell” among veterans. It’s true. Veterans can read the signs and feel how the political wind is blowing. In Ottawa these days, it’s about saving money.
Rudyard Kipling said it best: “It’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the Brute!’/ But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot.” The shooting hasn’t stopped: They got Pat Stogran – and all veterans.
Last Updated: August 17, 2010 7:22pm
They appointed him as the first veterans’ ombudsman on Remembrance Day 2007, and they’re firing him on Remembrance Day 2010.
“They” is the Harper government, and the ombudsman whose appointment is not being renewed is retired Colonel Pat Stogran, who commanded the first Battle Group (Princess Pats) to serve in Kandahar in 2002.
So why is this exemplary soldier being bounced, whose dedication to the troops is unquestioned? Good question. The answer: Because he took his terms of reference seriously and fought hard and loudly on behalf of veterans.
When the government announced the role in 2007, it said the ombudsman was to be “an impartial, arms-length and independent officer with the responsibility to assist veterans to pursue their concerns and advance their interests.” Pat Stogran seemed a perfect fit. A field commander, somewhat outspoken, he is on record as observing that government tends to regard wounded veterans as accident victims, which is a cop-out and justification for doing little.
As the watchdog on behalf of veterans he’s been relentless, ruffling the feathers of some by his concern for vets who fall through the cracks, are homeless, whose nature is not to complain, but who may be casualties from their service.
Those wounded in war, be it from physical or mental injuries, are special because they were damaged in the name of the country, and their country (or those who run the country) have an obligation to honour their future well-being.
Authorizing a lump sum payment to wounded vets in Afghanistan of some $250,000 instead of long-term pensions, seems more cop-out by government than a gesture of gratitude.
It’s seen as an abdication of future responsibilities, while supposedly compensating veterans for whatever disabilities they have sustained. In other words, they are on their own. That’s a continuing issue of contention in Canada.
If not, it should be. It worries Stogran.
As a battalion field commander, Stogran had a “warrior” mentality that dictated he look after his men, and do what he could on their behalf. With the Princess Patricias in Afghanistan, he won the regiment the respect of American allies, and Canada an esteem that was often missing during the dog-years of passive peacekeeping.
Our efforts in Afghanistan have vaulted Canada back into the ranks of consequence. Canada and its soldiers are taken seriously. But the government seems to be backing off — and the reluctance of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to renew Stogran’s mandate as ombudsman, seems symptomatic of the Canada’s shift away from the military, and Afghanistan.
Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn is hardly a tiger on behalf of vets and is unlikely to defy DND or the PM if they want a noisy advocate like Stogran sidelined and silenced.
If Blackburn were to protest the replacing of Stogran in a manner similar to his protestations when airport security confiscates a bottle of his tequila, perhaps the vets could be assured or a spokesman on their behalf.
To his credit, Stogran is more soldier than politician. A battalion commander is, arguably, the highest rank that thoroughly understands the rank and file.
General officers tend to be more political, with one eye ever-open for promotion. Battalion commanders deal directly with soldiers and the enemy.
Canadian Press says news of Stogran’s dismissal “went off like a bombshell” among veterans. It’s true. Veterans can read the signs and feel how the political wind is blowing. In Ottawa these days, it’s about saving money.
Rudyard Kipling said it best: “It’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the Brute!’/ But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot.” The shooting hasn’t stopped: They got Pat Stogran – and all veterans.
Monday, August 16, 2010
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Villagers in a key rural district near Kandahar City are "fed up with conflict" and with what they perceive is a standoff between Canadian forces and the Taliban, says Canada's top military commander in Kandahar.
In an exclusive one-on-one interview with Postmedia News, Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance said people in Panjwaii district feel "despondent" over what seems "like a tie every day" between a despotic insurgency and Canadian troops promising to help deliver freedom, resources and good governance.
Keeping to those commitments has been a challenge, acknowledged Vance, commander of Task Force Kandahar.
"We need more forces to hold effectively what we've got," he said, adding that "more are coming" in the weeks ahead. It has been reported that operations in Panjwaii could intensify in September, after the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.
The Canadian military's focus has already shifted from central and western Panjwaii — where its troops were pulled from hard-won territory last year — to the eastern part of the district that's closer to Kandahar City and to Kandahar Airfield (KAF), the largest ISAF base in southern Afghanistan.
Giving a candid assessment of present conditions in eastern Panjwaii, Vance described an atypical battlescape. He discussed at length a village of 3,000 called Nakhonay, just 15 kilometres west of KAF.
"There are Taliban sympathizers and Taliban in town. We're in town. The Afghan army is in town, the police are in town. So we're all there together, and it's at that point where it feels the worst."
Nakhonay's population is "fed up with conflict," he added. "It doesn't necessarily have any intrinsic trust in government because it hasn't felt government in a very, very long time. Neither good nor malign, (government has) just been absent."
The situation is at a tipping point, he suggested. About 70 per cent of the village has recently been cleared of insurgents. People are now inviting Canadian soldiers into their homes for tea, he said.
What's more, "the lens of the international community is focused a little more tightly on Kandahar than it ever has been," something he finds "gratifying." He gave as an example a recent biannual United Nations report on civilian casualties. It described in stark terms specific atrocities by the Taliban in Kandahar province: an alarming increase in insurgent-directed assassinations and targeted killings, including murders inside mosques and executions of children.
"The insurgency is gradually, more and more, being seen for what it really is," said Vance. "I think people are seeing more clearly what we've known or perceived here for quite some time. Given an opportunity, the insurgency has demonstrated a willingness to kill what we would term as innocents. They don't perceive them as innocents. They perceive them as being on the other side."
According to the UN report, victims include children as young as seven, who are accused by the Taliban of spying and then hanged.
While public perception of Canada's task at hand is important, more vital are resources, especially boots on the ground.
The American troop surge into provincial districts formerly under Canadian command has allowed Vance to concentrate his troops in Panjwaii. Holding the easternmost part of the district must not fail, he said. If it does, the insurgents will be huge step closer to their biggest objective: taking Kandahar City.
"We're trying, we're getting there, the forces are flowing in and we're gradually moving," Vance said in the interview.
Nakhonay and other villages in eastern Panjwaii are just starting to benefit from a reworked ISAF and Afghan formula that's meant to bring security, governance and development to war-impacted communities. The same formula was used under Vance's direction last year in Dand district, which lies directly east of Panjwaii. It is sometimes called the "model village" approach.
Dand "was about to fall" to the Taliban last year, said Vance. Insurgents had toppled Dand's district centre, its point of local government.
Canadians and Afghan counterparts pushed in and began applying the reworked counter-insurgency formula. Security rings went up around villages and population clusters, and infrastructure was rebuilt to facilitate better economic development and governance. Dand's district centre is being restored, with funding from Canada and guidance from Canadian military engineers, and a courthouse has just been built inside the district centre compound.
"They're actually dealing with the finer points of political assembly in Dand right now," said Vance.
Returning civil discourse and stability to Panjwaii remains a bigger challenge.
The district has been central to Canada's military mission in Kandahar since it began. Canadian soldiers prepared for and led Operation Medusa in September 2006, in the district's middle. Medusa was the Canadian military's largest combat operation since the Korean War. During the two-week offensive, 12 Canadians were killed. There were hundreds of Taliban casualties, and their leadership was either killed or left the immediate area.
Canadian and Afghan national security forces then pushed further west in the months that followed, into the so-called Horn of Panjwaii, an insurgency hotbed. But they weren't able to hold the area. In 2008 and 2009, three Canadian-built patrol bases — they were also called strong points and police substations — were dismantled in the Horn of Panjwaii and troops were drawn back.
The area reverted to Taliban control. It remains in their hands. If there is a plan to return to the area, Vance did not mention of it.
"We didn't have enough resources" in western Panjwaii, he explained. The Canadian presence was "too risky. No use. No value. An island of ANSF and ISAF that had a 300-metre patrolling radius, and every time we did one of these river run convoys we risked losses. For what? Nothing."
"It wasn't a very practical military thing to be doing either," he added. "Where you purport to put security in place, if it's so porous that the population has no confidence in you, or in fact you're experiencing that daily tie in the backyards, then you're not seeing it happen . . . you don't put a little pocket of nothing out there. (So) we pulled back."
Canadian military posts in the central part of the district have held but the Taliban are in close proximity; they continue to have success planting IEDs around these small bases, making troop movement dangerous, especially on the ground. Even air transport can be interrupted; last week, a Canadian Chinook helicopter was brought down by small arms fire less than two kilometres from Bazaar y Panjwaii, a village nestled beside a well-established Canadian forward operating base.
The focus is now several kilometres east, and on communities such as Nakhonay. Canadian soldiers arrived in force there last year. The immediate area is now dotted with small Canadian patrol bases. While these are closer to Kandahar Airfield than other Panjwaii installations, the environment is still thick with insurgents.
Securing the area remains a struggle.
"It's not open warfare," said Vance, "but in the last couple weeks we've reinforced, because we're having a real challenge with our own force protection."
The situation is improving. Vance was in the village earlier this week, and said he noticed some "unclenching."
"It's nothing big, but I've got to tell you, I walked into the town, and election posters are up in the town for the parliamentary elections coming up in September. There's actually a couple of posters up, of candidates."
Campaigning didn't happen in Nakhonay during last year's presidential election, he noted. The village was the seat of the Taliban's "shadow" government that issued directives for the province.
"I'm not trying to make more of it than it is," said Vance, "but (the election posters are) indicative of the population's desire. They want security. And they'd rather there not be a tie in their backyard."
bhutchinsonnationalpost.com
In an exclusive one-on-one interview with Postmedia News, Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance said people in Panjwaii district feel "despondent" over what seems "like a tie every day" between a despotic insurgency and Canadian troops promising to help deliver freedom, resources and good governance.
Keeping to those commitments has been a challenge, acknowledged Vance, commander of Task Force Kandahar.
"We need more forces to hold effectively what we've got," he said, adding that "more are coming" in the weeks ahead. It has been reported that operations in Panjwaii could intensify in September, after the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.
The Canadian military's focus has already shifted from central and western Panjwaii — where its troops were pulled from hard-won territory last year — to the eastern part of the district that's closer to Kandahar City and to Kandahar Airfield (KAF), the largest ISAF base in southern Afghanistan.
Giving a candid assessment of present conditions in eastern Panjwaii, Vance described an atypical battlescape. He discussed at length a village of 3,000 called Nakhonay, just 15 kilometres west of KAF.
"There are Taliban sympathizers and Taliban in town. We're in town. The Afghan army is in town, the police are in town. So we're all there together, and it's at that point where it feels the worst."
Nakhonay's population is "fed up with conflict," he added. "It doesn't necessarily have any intrinsic trust in government because it hasn't felt government in a very, very long time. Neither good nor malign, (government has) just been absent."
The situation is at a tipping point, he suggested. About 70 per cent of the village has recently been cleared of insurgents. People are now inviting Canadian soldiers into their homes for tea, he said.
What's more, "the lens of the international community is focused a little more tightly on Kandahar than it ever has been," something he finds "gratifying." He gave as an example a recent biannual United Nations report on civilian casualties. It described in stark terms specific atrocities by the Taliban in Kandahar province: an alarming increase in insurgent-directed assassinations and targeted killings, including murders inside mosques and executions of children.
"The insurgency is gradually, more and more, being seen for what it really is," said Vance. "I think people are seeing more clearly what we've known or perceived here for quite some time. Given an opportunity, the insurgency has demonstrated a willingness to kill what we would term as innocents. They don't perceive them as innocents. They perceive them as being on the other side."
According to the UN report, victims include children as young as seven, who are accused by the Taliban of spying and then hanged.
While public perception of Canada's task at hand is important, more vital are resources, especially boots on the ground.
The American troop surge into provincial districts formerly under Canadian command has allowed Vance to concentrate his troops in Panjwaii. Holding the easternmost part of the district must not fail, he said. If it does, the insurgents will be huge step closer to their biggest objective: taking Kandahar City.
"We're trying, we're getting there, the forces are flowing in and we're gradually moving," Vance said in the interview.
Nakhonay and other villages in eastern Panjwaii are just starting to benefit from a reworked ISAF and Afghan formula that's meant to bring security, governance and development to war-impacted communities. The same formula was used under Vance's direction last year in Dand district, which lies directly east of Panjwaii. It is sometimes called the "model village" approach.
Dand "was about to fall" to the Taliban last year, said Vance. Insurgents had toppled Dand's district centre, its point of local government.
Canadians and Afghan counterparts pushed in and began applying the reworked counter-insurgency formula. Security rings went up around villages and population clusters, and infrastructure was rebuilt to facilitate better economic development and governance. Dand's district centre is being restored, with funding from Canada and guidance from Canadian military engineers, and a courthouse has just been built inside the district centre compound.
"They're actually dealing with the finer points of political assembly in Dand right now," said Vance.
Returning civil discourse and stability to Panjwaii remains a bigger challenge.
The district has been central to Canada's military mission in Kandahar since it began. Canadian soldiers prepared for and led Operation Medusa in September 2006, in the district's middle. Medusa was the Canadian military's largest combat operation since the Korean War. During the two-week offensive, 12 Canadians were killed. There were hundreds of Taliban casualties, and their leadership was either killed or left the immediate area.
Canadian and Afghan national security forces then pushed further west in the months that followed, into the so-called Horn of Panjwaii, an insurgency hotbed. But they weren't able to hold the area. In 2008 and 2009, three Canadian-built patrol bases — they were also called strong points and police substations — were dismantled in the Horn of Panjwaii and troops were drawn back.
The area reverted to Taliban control. It remains in their hands. If there is a plan to return to the area, Vance did not mention of it.
"We didn't have enough resources" in western Panjwaii, he explained. The Canadian presence was "too risky. No use. No value. An island of ANSF and ISAF that had a 300-metre patrolling radius, and every time we did one of these river run convoys we risked losses. For what? Nothing."
"It wasn't a very practical military thing to be doing either," he added. "Where you purport to put security in place, if it's so porous that the population has no confidence in you, or in fact you're experiencing that daily tie in the backyards, then you're not seeing it happen . . . you don't put a little pocket of nothing out there. (So) we pulled back."
Canadian military posts in the central part of the district have held but the Taliban are in close proximity; they continue to have success planting IEDs around these small bases, making troop movement dangerous, especially on the ground. Even air transport can be interrupted; last week, a Canadian Chinook helicopter was brought down by small arms fire less than two kilometres from Bazaar y Panjwaii, a village nestled beside a well-established Canadian forward operating base.
The focus is now several kilometres east, and on communities such as Nakhonay. Canadian soldiers arrived in force there last year. The immediate area is now dotted with small Canadian patrol bases. While these are closer to Kandahar Airfield than other Panjwaii installations, the environment is still thick with insurgents.
Securing the area remains a struggle.
"It's not open warfare," said Vance, "but in the last couple weeks we've reinforced, because we're having a real challenge with our own force protection."
The situation is improving. Vance was in the village earlier this week, and said he noticed some "unclenching."
"It's nothing big, but I've got to tell you, I walked into the town, and election posters are up in the town for the parliamentary elections coming up in September. There's actually a couple of posters up, of candidates."
Campaigning didn't happen in Nakhonay during last year's presidential election, he noted. The village was the seat of the Taliban's "shadow" government that issued directives for the province.
"I'm not trying to make more of it than it is," said Vance, "but (the election posters are) indicative of the population's desire. They want security. And they'd rather there not be a tie in their backyard."
bhutchinsonnationalpost.com
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
A Canadian soldier, Sapper Brian Collier, was killed by a bomb in Afghanistan today.
Collier was killed while on a foot patrol in the village of Nakhonay, in the eastern part of Panjwaii District.
He had dismounted from his vehicle near Nakhonay, about 15 kilometres west of the city of Kandahar, when he was killed by the improvised explosive device.
Collier, 24, was born in Toronto and raised in Bradford, Ont. He was a member of the 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based at CFB Edmonton and was serving in Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment.
Collier, who was on his first deployment to Afghanistan, was previously injured in a separate IED blast.
"He fought hard to overcome his injury in order to get back to doing his job with his comrades," Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance, commander of Task Force Kandahar, said in a statement.
"Always quick to smile, Brian had an easygoing nature and a great sense of humour. Brian was an enthusiast of fine automobiles, and loved to spend time with his Audi," Vance said.
"Any Canadian who could have seen Brian in action would have been proud of him and proud of our country for the work being done with and for Afghans."
In another statement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper commended Collier's service, and extended condolences to the soldier's family and friends.
"The bravery and remarkable commitment of Canadians like Sapper Collier are bringing safety and stability to the people of Afghanistan," Harper said.
"Every day, their dedication and work protect our interests and values here at home and around the world. Sapper Collier's sacrifice will not be forgotten."
Collier's is the first Canadian death in Afghanistan since June 26, when Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht, 34, and Pte. Andrew Miller, 21, died after the vehicle they were in was struck by an IED.
The latest death brings to 151 the total number of Canadian soldiers who have died as part of the Afghan mission since it began in 2002.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The honour of Capt. Semrau
Lorne Gunter July 9, 2010 – 7:49 am
Canada doesn’t send monsters into combat. Our soldiers are not bloodthirsty killers eager to “off” as many enemy as possible. They are as intelligent, thoroughly trained and compassionate as any soldiers in the world.
We should be proud of men such as Capt. Robert Semrau — even if it is true, as prosecutors allege, that he killed a fatally wounded Taliban captive on the battlefield to put the man out of his misery.
Were any of us in his boots?
In October 2008, Capt. Semrau had just finished leading men — successfully — through a lengthy ambush in Helmand province, which was at the time the most violent province in Afghanistan. His unit consisted of a handful of Canadians and several Afghan National Army officers and soldiers.
After a brief firefight, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter was called in to clear the Taliban out of the area Capt. Semrau’s troops were patrolling. The gunship blasted an insurgent out of a tree. An Apache fires rounds the size of a man’s thumb, several of which ripped through the enemy combatant, cutting off both his legs. According to eyewitness reports, the man had lost a lot of blood. One Afghan said “there was no blood in his body.”
There was no chance of saving the man, even if a medevac flight could have been arranged to airlift him to a field hospital. In any case, with the ongoing battle, there was no chance a medic and helicopter could reach the site. A man in Capt. Semrau’s position, then, had two options: Leave the man behind in agony or put him out of his misery and move his men along to safety as quickly as possible.
He was responsible for his men’s lives. He was anxious to get them out of harm’s way. Even if he shot the Taliban soldiers — which has not been proven in court — he didn’t snap and perform the action out of spite or revenge.
Would it have been better if he had used the situation as a teaching moment for the benefit of the Afghan soldiers who accompanied him? Sure. According to reports, they were hitting and spitting on the wounded Taliban fighter. They should know not to abuse their prisoners, no matter how detestable their actions. But such lectures are not a realistic option in the heat of battle.
Still, Capt. Semrau is on trial. A four-officer panel will now decide his guilt or innocence. If they find him guilty, he could face a life sentence for murder.
Let’s just hope and pray his judges act honourably — as honourably as Semrau did, even if it is the case that the charges against him are proven in court.
National Post
lgunter@shaw.ca
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The bodies of Canada's latest fallen soldiers in Afghanistan are expected to return home Tuesday afternoon.
Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht, 34, and Pte. Andrew Miller, 21, were killed Saturday when their armoured vehicle was struck by an improved explosive device in Afghanistan's Panjwaii District, about 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City.
The two medics from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa - about 160 kilometres northwest of Ottawa - are the 149th and 150th Canadian soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan since Canada entered combat there in 2002. They were the sixth and seventh medics to die in Afghanistan and the 11th and 12th Canadians to die there in 2010.
Giesebrecht, who was married and leaves behind a stepson, is the third female soldier to die while deployed for Canada in the war-torn nation. She was serving her second tour in Afghanistan.
Miller, who was from Sudbury, Ont., was with 2 Field Ambulance, while Giesebrecht - who called Wallaceburg, Ont., home - was from 1 Canadian Field Hospital. Both units were based in Petawawa.
He is survived by his mother, Wendy Miller, his father, Raymond Ealdama, two sisters, a brother and his girlfriend, Staci Jessup - "his soulmate."
In a statement released Monday, Miller's family said he was "proudly following in his father's footsteps, initially into the military and then by deploying to Afghanistan."
Miller's father, a member of the Greater Sudbury Police Service, served in Afghanistan in 2008 as part of the Canadian Civilian Police training contingent in Kandahar City.
"Andrew believed strongly in the mission and went to Afghanistan knowing he was making a difference for the Afghan people," the statement said. "Andrew loved his job and died upholding his beliefs and values in the service of his country."
Another Canadian soldier was injured in the blast, but was listed in stable condition.
At the time the soldiers were killed, Giesebrecht, Miller and other Canadian troops were responding to a call for help from an Afghan family whose doorway had been rigged by the Taliban with an improvised explosive device.
The repatriation ceremony is scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.
In addition to the families of the two fallen soldiers, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk are also expected to attend.
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