Today in History, as it applies to me.

[Sentryduty]

Today, 10 years ago, marked the day the first chalks of the 1 PPCLI Battlegroup arrived in Afghanistan. These would be the first days of Task Force 1-06 (Orion) on the ground in the Kandahar region, taking over from the outgoing US Task Force Gun Devil and working alongside US Task Force Nighthawk.

It would not be long before we seen our first bitter taste of combat with insurgent forces.

Canadian troops took up combat posts 10 years ago in Kandahar province

The Canadian Press
February 23, 2016 12:35 PM

OTTAWA - Col. Ian Hope, the first in a long line of Canadian battlefield commanders, arrived in Kandahar aboard a C-130 transport plane with an unobstructed view of the sunrise over the wide, abandoned sands of the southern Registan desert.

It was the beginning, in more ways than one.

He landed a little ahead of his troops from the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, who 10 years ago Wednesday, formally — but quietly — took over for U.S. Army units in the heartland of the Taliban.

Even before the hulking transport touched down on the sun-baked airstrip, Hope knew they would need energy, moral strength and mental focus for an unfamiliar kind of war — a counter-insurgency fought from the shadows.

"I knew by reading history and through professional development it was very difficult and unpredictable," Hope told The Canadian Press in an interview.

"I also knew that the situation would change, requiring mental flexibility. But I was very, very confident. I was confident when I left nearly eight months later."

Just how much spirit, endurance and concentration the Canadian people and political establishment would need in the weeks, months and years ahead was not apparent on that winter day in the desert.

By the time Hope left, however, reality was all too clear.

Kandahar was on fire and awash in both Canadian and Afghan blood, and Hope's successor was preparing for a major ground offensive to retake territory from the Taliban fighters who were surging out of their Pakistan sanctuaries.

When it was all over five years later, 158 Canadian soldiers were dead, nearly 2,000 more had been wounded and billions of dollars had been spent on military hardware and development.

Canada assumed wider responsibility for the southern command of Afghanistan under Brig.-Gen. Dave Fraser on Feb. 28, 2006.

Fraser called it an unheralded moment of national pride to be given that sort of international responsibility. The intervening years demonstrated that Canada was country that pulled its weight in difficult times, he added.

"It probably shaped the 10 years that have come and gone," Fraser said.

Hope said he's not "overwhelmed with nostalgia or remorse" at either milestone. The mission, he said, was simple — and wavered little throughout Canada's long, costly engagement.

"We needed to buy time; time for the international effort to create Afghan institutions capable of standing up to the pressures on their own," Hope said.

"When I left, I felt that we had given the province of Kandahar, the south of the country, NATO, the other international players and the Afghan government the time they needed.

"This even though the Taliban, supported from and by Pakistanis, surged in great numbers into southern Afghanistan in an attempt to win space and to disrupt plans to create those viable institutions. We denied them that in 2006, and again and again until we left in 2011."

In some respects, a decade later, the international community is still buying time.

A report released last week by the Rand Corporation, a U.S. non-profit think tank, says the counter-insurgency war throughout all of Afghanistan took two steps forward and two steps back in 2015.

The election in 2014 of a new president, Ashraf Ghani, offered promise, it noted.

"But now that the honeymoon with Ghani is ending, it appears that Afghanistan is left with many of the same unresolved issues as when the conflict began, including corruption, poor governance, and weak rule of law," it reads.

"The best prospects for the conflict's resolution are through some kind of negotiated settlement, and future U.S. efforts should focus on reaching such a settlement and on favourable terms."

The war and world attention has moved on from Afghanistan, but the policy group argues there is a growing imperative for the West to let Ghani to bury the hatchet with the Taliban, which has recently resisted incursions by the latest global terror threat: the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.

"To avoid a repeat of similar missteps in Iraq, the United States should push for reconciliation to ensure an inclusive negotiated settlement (likely to include constitutional reform) that gives the Taliban a legitimate voice in the political process," said the report.

"By achieving this objective, U.S. policy would work to drive a wedge between the internally directed insurgency of the Taliban and the transnational threat posed by groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State."

Fraser said he believes the premature ending of the Kandahar combat mission in 2011, while NATO was still fighting, and the latest withdrawal from Iraq has eroded Canada's standing among its allies.

Hope, meanwhile, is inclined to dismiss "hyperbole" and predictions of "imminent doom."

From his perspective, the struggle in Afghanistan is no different than many other nations throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

"Afghanistan was just phase one of a long generational struggle."


© Copyright Times Colonist -

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Seaspriter]

First, Darren, thank you for your courage, perseverance, and willingness to share youR experience.

I'm currently reading "VIMY" -- the heroic story of the Canadian assault on the German emplacements at Vimy Ridge in WWI -- one of the great defining moments in Canadian War history. Certainly your experience is another of those defining moments. Glad you came back alive.

Afghanistan is left with many of the same unresolved issues as when the conflict began, including corruption, poor governance, and weak rule of law,"

This is really the crux of the problem and the underlying difficulty in our world today. If you visit Transparency International - The Global Anti-Corruption Coalition, you will quickly see that the levels of corruption are highly correlated to the level of turmoil and poverty in the world. You will also see that Canada sits at the top 10 of all the world's nations in terms of being trusted -- with very low levels of corruption -- a model for much of the world, like Iraq and Afghanistan. They would have done well to understand the nature of the Canadian people as a model for their future; unfortunately I would guess that few grasped the magnitude of that opportunity.

Until we transform cultures to accept the value of trust, respect, ethics, and dignity of people, wars will continue.

[Sentryduty]

Thank you for the comments and interest everyone, I may along the coming months, share some personal photos in this thread as they are applicable to the 10 years ago timeline. It might give a sense of "being there" and generate some interesting discussion.

[Sentryduty]

"Zeroing PAQ-4 Lasers" Late February 2006 - Kandahar Airfield Afghanistan

Members of 1 PPCLI C-Company, 7 Platoon, 2 Section zero their C7A2 rifles with newly issued PAQ-4 Infrared Laser Aiming Devices using a boresight collimator laser and a flat surface. Since the infrared lasers are not visible to the naked eye, Corporal Nicolas Fenton holds the weapon steady on target while Sergeant Mike Reid checks laser positioning through a AN/PVS-14 Nightvision Monocular with day cap, and Master Corporal Patrick Drolet makes adjustments to the Laser Aiming Device.

The PAQ-4 was a new piece of equipment that allowed accurate rifle fire at night with the use of nightvision equipment. Collimation was challenging due to the side mounting of the laser which introduced both vertical and horizontal sighting parallax, however the PAQ-4 was a very useful piece of kit for combat shooting and target designation. The Commander's version, the PAQ-2 had an IR flashlight mode and pattern inserts for section and platoon level target designation and fire control.

[Badger]

Darren...

Thank you for your service...

"Lest We Forget"....

Regards,
Doug

[Sentryduty]

From my first week of March file I have a bit of humour, the summer fighting season hadn't really heated up yet, so I present a John Deere Gator in the Gun Tractor role. The Gator was the heaviest amour in theater and was often feared by the Taliban Commanders for it's 6x6 configuration and dumping cargo box capability.

Well, much of that is nonsense, they were used as small camp runabouts and I spotted this one "inside the wire" at Kandahar Airfield, in a funny situation when the photo is provided without context.

No idea who the guys are on the Gator but the were simply moving a "trophy" piece from one HQ to another for display.

[Sentryduty]

From the 2 Week of March 2006 Folder.
Overlooking the flightline at Kandahar Airfield, a lone Chinook helicopter stands loaded for a supply run to one of the many remote Forward Operating Bases in RC South. At this time 7 Platoon of Charlie Company, 1 PPCLI would have assumed full Quick Reaction Force (QRF) duties and been relocated from the BAT's soft shelters to "Weatherhaven" type section accommodations to be closer to the helicopters which would carry them to their various mission locations.

The turbine whine, and the dull whapping of rotors would become a normal sound in the backdrop of a desert night, every arrival and departure signifying a gunship, support, or medivac mission underway.

A 24 and 7 cycle of operations, after a short while it was easy lie awake on your cot and listen to identify the various craft, Apache, Chinook, and Blackhawk by their distinctive sounds.

[Sentryduty]

I forgot to add a new photo this weekend, I got a little busy, I will see if I can find something interesting this evening for update.

[Sentryduty]

Friends in high places.

Apache escorts were always a welcome companion on our various QRF field trips to parts unknown. This one was tailing Chinook 233 "War Hippo" on take off from Kandahar airfield as seen in the back ground.

Notable is the yellow building adjacent to the large hanger, known as the "Taliban's Last Stand" which served as the arrival/departure terminal for military traffic in and out of the country.

[Sentryduty]

Today (March 28/29 depending on your timezone at the time) is a very significant day for me, and this article covers the details as published only a day after the event.



Private Robert Costall, 2 Section LMG, 7 Platoon, Charlie Company, 1 Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...8555/?page=all

HOW PTE. COSTALL DIED
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Mar. 30, 2006 12:00AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2009 10:41AM EDT

In the early hours of his 52nd day in this ruinously complex and violent country, the young soldier from one of the most preposterously blessed nations on Earth was killed in combat.

Afghanistan, brought to its knees by three decades of war and self-immolation, rendered numb by roadside bombs and gunfire, and its ground regularly strewn with human flesh, barely noticed; Canada, beset by doubts about the mission here and rendered timorous by six decades of peace, could hardly bring itself to look.

Thus, in the service of these two disparate and distracted lands, Private Robert Costall's death might appear a lonely, even futile, one.

It came at a remote and isolated forward operating base in the Sangin River Valley, about 110 kilometres northwest of Kandahar, in Helmand province, a largely uninhabited part of southern Afghanistan that is only nominally under British control. "A bit of desert in the middle of nowhere," British Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff for the international brigade headquarters here, called it yesterday.

Consisting of nothing but a smattering of dirt surrounded by a berm of sandbags, the base is manned by a contingent of about 100 soldiers from the Afghan National Army and their U.S. military trainers.

Established only six to eight weeks ago, sitting smack in the middle of a well-known transit area for the Taliban as well as local warlords and narcotics criminals who Col. Vernon frankly said are often loosely defined as Taliban for the sake of military convenience, the base is in need of constant resupply, with convoys frequently travelling to neighbouring towns and back.

On Tuesday afternoon, one of these ANA convoys was ambushed by Taliban forces, with eight national soldiers killed.

At Kandahar Air Field, where most of the 9,000 troops from the eight-nation coalition forces are posted, two British Harrier fighter bombers were first dispatched as air support for the convoy, then two U.S. Apache attack helicopters.

The convoy was able to repel the initial Taliban attack, but was stranded 13 kilometres from its rudimentary base and left even more vulnerable when an improvised explosive device, or IED, exploded ahead of it, destroying the road.

Usually, Taliban attacks work in reverse: IED first, then small-arms fire. This one was a surprise, as was, Col. Vernon said, "the size and tenacity" of the Taliban force.

At 10 p.m. that night, with the beleaguered ANA working to repair the route, the third element of support for the convoy, the quick-reaction force, or QRF, was mustered.

This was 7 Platoon of Charlie Company of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

This was Pte. Costall's platoon, 38 young men who about a month ago were moved out of the BAT (big-*** tents) where the rest of Charlie Company and pieces of the First Battalion's Alpha Company live when at Kandahar Air Field, and not in the field and set up closer to the actual flight line.

They were flown by U.S. helicopter -- Canada has no troop-carrying copters; those sold off to the Netherlands years ago are cruelly still in use here by their Dutch purchasers -- to Sangin.

About 2:45 a.m. yesterday, the Taliban attacked the base proper, a firefight that would ultimately involve B-52s dropping munitions for the coalition, the Canadians defending themselves by firing into the dark from within the perimeter, and the Taliban as always firing inward from the hills nearby, armed with AK-47 automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and what Col. Vernon acknowledged was their usual courage.

Their coherence and co-ordination "are not great by Western military standards," he said, "but there is no doubt, they are brave."

As evidence that there is, in Col. Vernon's words, "a fine line between bravery and stupidity," unconfirmed estimates now put the number of Taliban dead at more than 30.

It was during this larger battle that Pte. Costall and a U.S. soldier were killed, and three other Canadians sustained gunshot and other flesh wounds. Two of these soldiers have already been released from the Kandahar base hospital, with the third scheduled to leave for Germany for further treatment, apparently skin grafts to his legs.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Ricard, the Canadian task force surgeon, described them all yesterday as being in good physical condition and spirits, although the emotional toll of what they endured and saw is unknowable.

"That is not something we can put a dressing on," is how he cast it.

Canadian military officials are unofficially describing the battle as arguably the deadliest in which Canadians have been engaged since two soldiers were killed in a 1974 firefight in Nicosia, Cyprus.

It was also perhaps the most sustained Canadian combat since the ferocious and unsung 15-hour-long contest for the Medak Pocket in Croatia in the former Yugoslavia, also fought by the soldiers of Charlie Company, who took no casualties but killed 27 Croats.

It took Ottawa, wedded to the outdated national vision of Canadians as pure peacekeepers and apparently embarrassed by overt fighting skills, almost a decade to honour those valiant men, their unit medals presented only in late 2002.

The formal rules of engagement are looser for the Canadians here, the government and General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, having warned the public that the troops in Afghanistan would be soldiering and that casualties were to be expected.

What remains to be seen is how the soldiers fighting here will be regarded by their civilian brethren and how, if at all, their sacrifices are acknowledged.

Certainly, Pte. Costall's fellows believe, deep in their bones, in their own mission improbable. It is part war, part reconstruction, part civil governance, with troops on one hand building schools and goodwill even as on the other they move as armed and threatening-looking security forces through the tiny, mud-built villages and cities of this impoverished and overwhelmingly illiterate country.

Even now, when worse clearly has come to worst, Major Bill Fletcher, Pte. Costall's officer commanding, as he is called, was steadfast.

"Everything good that we do from now on," he pledged earnestly yesterday at the BATs, "we do in part in his name."

That morning, a day after Major Fletcher turned 34, he had given his young men and women the dreadful news.

"I could have kicked them in the guts; it would have hurt less," he said. "It was the toughest thing I've done in my career."

He left them alone then, "because the best thing is to talk to another army guy." The other best thing, he said, is action. Most of 7 Platoon remains at Sangin, finishing the job, although they will be replaced as soon as it is prudent to do so. The rest of Charlie Company is, with Alpha Company, preparing for deployment again.

"By action," said the thoughtful Major Fletcher, "I don't mean revenge, or looking for a scrap. . . . The key thing here is the population," by which he meant winning over the Afghan people.

"We want to do it that much better, because we've paid the price."

Behind him stood a clutch of damp-eyed young men tasked with acting as pallbearers for their fallen friend. They were Privates Jeff Leitch, Jerry Conlon, Dawson Bayliss, Jason Joe, Jason Hoekstra and Jesse Peterson; Corporals Paul Rachynski and Bryson Kellor; and, in charge of them, Sergeant Patrick Tower.

Pte. Conlon emerged from the shattered group to speak about Pte. Costall.

Both 22, the two went through basic training together about three years ago, and Pte. Conlon remembered his friend as "a great soldier, a great guy" who "never whined or complained" about the infantryman's gruelling and unglamorous lot.

It was about a year ago, he said, at the Edmonton Garrison that the First Battalion calls home, that Pte. Costall came gleefully bounding up to him, shouting, "I got married! I got married!" And so he had, to Sandra. "He knew his wife was The One," Pte. Conlon said. The couple's baby son is now 13 months old.

Fatherhood and marriage aren't common among privates, Major Fletcher said, and perhaps were what made the young man unusually mature for his age. While "quiet and reserved, at least around his Major," he remembered with a weak grin, when Pte. Costall spoke, "he was carefully considered; you knew you should listen. He had real leadership potential. He's somebody Canadians should be very proud of."

It was at his briefing yesterday that Col. Vernon best described the nature of the coalition task here.

The briefing was attended by members of the Afghan news media, who like their countrymen are bright as pennies but consumed by their nation's overwhelming neediness, their questions reflecting this: Wasn't it true that the Taliban were coming from Pakistan? Was the West going to build more schools, train teachers?

It was in answer to these that Col. Vernon defined the difficulty of this mission.

To one, he said, "We build schools. We build bridges. They [the Taliban]burn them. They intimidate the teachers. I don't know anywhere in the world where a culture of negativity about allowing your people to be educated, sustains a level of local support, and it's something I find abhorrent and bizarre."

To another, he said, while the Taliban "leadership and the thinking" is across the border, the recruits are often "Afghan refugees. You can't say Afghan people are not being recruited, it's all there. Any emerging nation has to take some responsibility for the actions of its own people."

In Helmand province, he said, the British have to do what Canadians have done in Kandahar province: move into the remote villages, get local projects going. "We're in a battle for the hearts and minds of the young Afghan male with the recruiting sergeants of the Taliban. . . . Can we offer them better employment than a gun and a motorbike?"

The young Canadian man who died in service of his Afghan counterpart was sent off home last night.

Into the warm and deceptively benevolent spring night -- with songbirds, confused by the lights in the big hangar optimistically called Taliban's Last Stand, chirping as thousands of army boots moved with surprising quiet onto the darkened tarmac -- his casket was borne to the flight line in one of the LAVs, or light armored vehicles, so beloved of the Canadian infantry, his pallbearers arriving in another.

Two rear doors opened and Pte. Costall was on his way to the waiting ramp of a great grey Hercules C-130.

Piper Master-Corporal Callum Campbell played the lament.

Canadians, and soldiers from eight other nations, saluted their fallen comrade.

All the way home to Canada, escort officer Sergeant Bill Grady, of 7 Platoon, was with the young man's body.

Robert Costall was never alone, not for a minute.

When it was all over, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope, the commanding officer of the Canadian battle group known as Task Force Orion, looked skyward and pointed.

"Orion," he said, of the bright and beautiful constellation above.