On patrol with the Dragoons in Kandahar Province
Paul Workman, CTV News South Asia Burea Chief Updated: Fri. Oct. 13 2006 8:47 PM ET
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061013/workman_dragoons_feature_061013/20061013/
Forward Operating Base Sperwan — The first thing that assaults you is the dust. It's thick and choking, like drifts of brown talcum powder, coming up to your calves in places and getting into every exposed pore in your body. By the light of a bright moon, it looks like snow sifting over a barren landscape. And when the soldiers here mixed it with water for their makeshift shower, it hardened like cement.
In military terms, this is FOB Sperwan, a new Forward Operating Base occupied by Canadian and Afghan troops, along with a few Americans doing special operations.
Paul Workman, Forward Operating Base Sperwan
This is the western limit of maneuvers against the Taliban, and where the Royal Canadian Dragoons are now digging in. In the centre is an unfinished school built by UNICEF, and below, a belt of farmland, green with vineyards, a little corn and a lot of marijuana. Even through the dust, the smell is rich as you're driving by.
The Dragoons are a small unit, no more than about 30 soldiers, here to do reconnaissance, defending isolated bases like this with their specialized listening equipment and night-vision technology. For now, it's been calm, and the Dragoons are desperately hoping it will stay that way, after suffering a frightful week of attacks, roadside bombs and the loss of three soldiers just a few kilometers to the north. For such a close-knit squadron, that much death, in such a short period of time is devastating.
Maj. Andrew Lussier says 'When you lose a few soldiers, you question yourself forever.'
"When you lose a few soldiers, you question yourself forever," says the officer in command, Maj. Andrew Lussier. "I think any leader worth his salt will feel the same. Did I do everything I could have done? I'll struggle with that forever."
It's the burden of leadership, he says, or perhaps the curse of leadership. "These guys depend on me, as I believe in them. Listen, it's a death in the family, it's a simple as that."
The Dragoons are Canada's oldest armored regiment. They trace their history back to the Northwest Rebellion and the Klondike Gold Rush. After the First World War, they changed from horses to armored vehicles and then just a couple of decades later, fought in Sicily, Italy and Normandy. Korea followed, and now they're in Afghanistan, the bloodiest combat Canadians have faced in a generation. There isn't a single soldier in the regiment who ever expected to endure such intensive fighting or such painful losses. And some of them are only in their early twenties.
"Certainly when the combat phase opened, it was clear to us that nobody's done this stuff in decades, this kind of deliberate planning and level of operations on this scale. I've had 19 years in the army and I've never done anything like this," explains Lussier.
Lussier looks out through the scope of his gun.
He's got two days of growth on his face, a red nose from the sun, and there's a film of dust from his hairline to his T-shirt.
"We're forging perhaps the next chapter in the history of the Canadian military, and the troops talk about that, they're proud of it, proud to be a part of it."
So that's what it's all about? Being there, as maybe their fathers or grandfathers were before them. Or, being able to go home as veterans who survived the Battle of Panjwai, and Pashmol Pocket, when dozens of others were shipped back in wooden coffins, some of them your best friends.
"Maybe it's a little bit of cockiness," says Lussier, "but they kind of look down at other people who weren't there, saying 'Hey, you weren't there, we were.' I don't know if that's right or not, but that's just the way it is."
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Paul Workman, CTV News South Asia Burea Chief Updated: Fri. Oct. 13 2006 8:47 PM ET
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061013/workman_dragoons_feature_061013/20061013/
Forward Operating Base Sperwan — The first thing that assaults you is the dust. It's thick and choking, like drifts of brown talcum powder, coming up to your calves in places and getting into every exposed pore in your body. By the light of a bright moon, it looks like snow sifting over a barren landscape. And when the soldiers here mixed it with water for their makeshift shower, it hardened like cement.
In military terms, this is FOB Sperwan, a new Forward Operating Base occupied by Canadian and Afghan troops, along with a few Americans doing special operations.
Paul Workman, Forward Operating Base Sperwan
This is the western limit of maneuvers against the Taliban, and where the Royal Canadian Dragoons are now digging in. In the centre is an unfinished school built by UNICEF, and below, a belt of farmland, green with vineyards, a little corn and a lot of marijuana. Even through the dust, the smell is rich as you're driving by.
The Dragoons are a small unit, no more than about 30 soldiers, here to do reconnaissance, defending isolated bases like this with their specialized listening equipment and night-vision technology. For now, it's been calm, and the Dragoons are desperately hoping it will stay that way, after suffering a frightful week of attacks, roadside bombs and the loss of three soldiers just a few kilometers to the north. For such a close-knit squadron, that much death, in such a short period of time is devastating.
Maj. Andrew Lussier says 'When you lose a few soldiers, you question yourself forever.'
"When you lose a few soldiers, you question yourself forever," says the officer in command, Maj. Andrew Lussier. "I think any leader worth his salt will feel the same. Did I do everything I could have done? I'll struggle with that forever."
It's the burden of leadership, he says, or perhaps the curse of leadership. "These guys depend on me, as I believe in them. Listen, it's a death in the family, it's a simple as that."
The Dragoons are Canada's oldest armored regiment. They trace their history back to the Northwest Rebellion and the Klondike Gold Rush. After the First World War, they changed from horses to armored vehicles and then just a couple of decades later, fought in Sicily, Italy and Normandy. Korea followed, and now they're in Afghanistan, the bloodiest combat Canadians have faced in a generation. There isn't a single soldier in the regiment who ever expected to endure such intensive fighting or such painful losses. And some of them are only in their early twenties.
"Certainly when the combat phase opened, it was clear to us that nobody's done this stuff in decades, this kind of deliberate planning and level of operations on this scale. I've had 19 years in the army and I've never done anything like this," explains Lussier.
Lussier looks out through the scope of his gun.
He's got two days of growth on his face, a red nose from the sun, and there's a film of dust from his hairline to his T-shirt.
"We're forging perhaps the next chapter in the history of the Canadian military, and the troops talk about that, they're proud of it, proud to be a part of it."
So that's what it's all about? Being there, as maybe their fathers or grandfathers were before them. Or, being able to go home as veterans who survived the Battle of Panjwai, and Pashmol Pocket, when dozens of others were shipped back in wooden coffins, some of them your best friends.
"Maybe it's a little bit of cockiness," says Lussier, "but they kind of look down at other people who weren't there, saying 'Hey, you weren't there, we were.' I don't know if that's right or not, but that's just the way it is."
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