Fifteen Days
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD Globe and Mail Update October 26, 2007 at 12:32 PM EDT
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On July 22, 2006, Task Force Orion, the Canadian battle group that served in southern Afghanistan from February to August that year, was returning from almost a month in the field, far beyond the safety of the large coalition base at Kandahar Air Field.
After weeks of hard fighting in remote parts of the south, the exhausted troops met in a “leaguer,” a traditional circle-the-wagons defensive position, for a pep talk from their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope, before heading back to KAF.
Lt.-Col. John Conrad, who was in charge of the National Support Element, the unit responsible for keeping the fighting troops supplied with everything from bullets to fuel, drove out that day with a resupply convoy going to meet the soldiers.
As the NSE commanding officer, there was absolutely no need for Lieutenant-Colonel John Conrad to go out on convoys, but he made a point of doing so at least once a week. “It wasn't about the technical things that I brought to it,” he says. “To me it was about the moral plane: These guys need to see that I am here with them, I trust them, and that my life [has] exactly the same value as yours, we're in this together.”
Like his friend Ian Hope, Conrad knows that, as the boss, “you can't show you're afraid – and I was, every time I went out on a convoy, I was damned afraid.”
The resupply convoy, Conrad aboard, left KAF [Kandahar Air Field] at about 3 a.m. on July 22. They were bringing diesel, rations, water, a low-bed truck for vehicle recovery (it was already full by the time they got to the leaguer; an armoured vehicle called a Coyote had broken down) and a wrecker for towing. “It's just a package of capability,” Conrad says, “like dragging a Canadian Tire store somewhere to where you're working.”
He and Hope had a cigar together. “It was a very long day,” Conrad says. “It's a helluva long drive from KAF to where we needed to be in Helmand, but a great day. Ian's guys were coming back, they'd done battle, everyone was triumphant.”
As the troops were running, buoyant, to get into their trucks, Conrad pulled Hope aside, told him he had a Coyote down, and asked for a light armoured vehicle (LAV), “just so I could have two big cannons. And he said, ‘Yep, no problem. Just stay with us. Just stay with us at the back of the convoy.' ” But it didn't work out as they planned, because one of Conrad's cargo trucks broke down. They had to stop and put it on the wrecker, and suddenly, they were behind the tail end of Hope's convoy.
“Then we cross the Arghendab River,” Conrad says, “and generally when we crossed that river, I usually think, ‘Okay, I'm out of the bad place.' ” But they had to stop again: The brakes on the broken-down truck were grabbing, and the mechanics needed another 10 minutes to back them off. “And that just widened the gap between Ian and me.”
Conrad had gone out in a G-Wagon utility vehicle, but for the trip back had switched places with the crew of a 10-tonne diesel truck because its air conditioner was on the fritz and he wanted to give the poor guys a break. Directly in front of him was a Bison armoured vehicle.
“So we're coming into that urban sprawl that kind of gives way to Kandahar,” Conrad says, “and there's a terraced village over there, like high ground, and on this side there's off in the distance three mountains, but it's kind of like an open field. And we're just moving along, a little bit slower because we've got a couple of vehicle casualties,” he says, when he noticed a small cab-over truck. A Toyota Hiace, he thinks, approaching.
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CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD Globe and Mail Update October 26, 2007 at 12:32 PM EDT
Article Link
On July 22, 2006, Task Force Orion, the Canadian battle group that served in southern Afghanistan from February to August that year, was returning from almost a month in the field, far beyond the safety of the large coalition base at Kandahar Air Field.
After weeks of hard fighting in remote parts of the south, the exhausted troops met in a “leaguer,” a traditional circle-the-wagons defensive position, for a pep talk from their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope, before heading back to KAF.
Lt.-Col. John Conrad, who was in charge of the National Support Element, the unit responsible for keeping the fighting troops supplied with everything from bullets to fuel, drove out that day with a resupply convoy going to meet the soldiers.
As the NSE commanding officer, there was absolutely no need for Lieutenant-Colonel John Conrad to go out on convoys, but he made a point of doing so at least once a week. “It wasn't about the technical things that I brought to it,” he says. “To me it was about the moral plane: These guys need to see that I am here with them, I trust them, and that my life [has] exactly the same value as yours, we're in this together.”
Like his friend Ian Hope, Conrad knows that, as the boss, “you can't show you're afraid – and I was, every time I went out on a convoy, I was damned afraid.”
The resupply convoy, Conrad aboard, left KAF [Kandahar Air Field] at about 3 a.m. on July 22. They were bringing diesel, rations, water, a low-bed truck for vehicle recovery (it was already full by the time they got to the leaguer; an armoured vehicle called a Coyote had broken down) and a wrecker for towing. “It's just a package of capability,” Conrad says, “like dragging a Canadian Tire store somewhere to where you're working.”
He and Hope had a cigar together. “It was a very long day,” Conrad says. “It's a helluva long drive from KAF to where we needed to be in Helmand, but a great day. Ian's guys were coming back, they'd done battle, everyone was triumphant.”
As the troops were running, buoyant, to get into their trucks, Conrad pulled Hope aside, told him he had a Coyote down, and asked for a light armoured vehicle (LAV), “just so I could have two big cannons. And he said, ‘Yep, no problem. Just stay with us. Just stay with us at the back of the convoy.' ” But it didn't work out as they planned, because one of Conrad's cargo trucks broke down. They had to stop and put it on the wrecker, and suddenly, they were behind the tail end of Hope's convoy.
“Then we cross the Arghendab River,” Conrad says, “and generally when we crossed that river, I usually think, ‘Okay, I'm out of the bad place.' ” But they had to stop again: The brakes on the broken-down truck were grabbing, and the mechanics needed another 10 minutes to back them off. “And that just widened the gap between Ian and me.”
Conrad had gone out in a G-Wagon utility vehicle, but for the trip back had switched places with the crew of a 10-tonne diesel truck because its air conditioner was on the fritz and he wanted to give the poor guys a break. Directly in front of him was a Bison armoured vehicle.
“So we're coming into that urban sprawl that kind of gives way to Kandahar,” Conrad says, “and there's a terraced village over there, like high ground, and on this side there's off in the distance three mountains, but it's kind of like an open field. And we're just moving along, a little bit slower because we've got a couple of vehicle casualties,” he says, when he noticed a small cab-over truck. A Toyota Hiace, he thinks, approaching.
More on link
