It was just another day in Afghanistan, and another group of our guys traveling in an armored carrier became the newest victims of yet another IED (Improvised Explosive Device).
When I was a grunt (infantryman) in the Canadian Armed forces, we were trained how to look for buried land mines if you found yourself in a situation without other resources such as metal detectors at your disposal. We were instructed to crawl on our bellies with our bayonets held in our outstretched hands, and slice gently through the ground ahead of us, using a very shallow angle of entry.
We did this slowly, methodically, and very carefully! Once we felt our blades come up against an object in the ground, we immediately gave a signal to our rearward man who moved in with a metal detector (the metal detector was available here for training purposes) to determine whether it was a buried device, or just a rock.
But, this is no way to make time going through a minefield! This method is excruciatingly slow, and dangerous. But it's what we were trained to do, if once again you found yourself with no other choice than to use this method.
But, I can assure you when I state the following: Modern day warfare, especially the type of guerrilla insurgency as fought by the Afghanistan Taliban has drastically reduced the odds of even an extremely well trained soldier surviving the real dangers of hidden IED's; (and this is coming from an ex-soldier that was a crack shot, trained in an array of battle strategies, physically able, and with an eye for details).
I feel the West's, brave, young men and women today, soldiers who wish to serve under the decisions their nation's politicians have made, have been put into an impossible situation. You can be the best soldier in the history of the Army, but if the armored vehicle you are traveling happens to go over a recently buried mine, and all it takes is a pre-paid disposable cell phone to set it off, then it's obvious you're not much better off than a sitting duck!
BTW, Its reported this particular last group of Canadian soldiers were ironically returning from defusing another IED.
2 comments:
In my School days we were told if we wished to further our eductions become Teachers (I guess we were going into a shortage at that time) or whatever, but to join the army - they would pay for your education.
Many of these folks never dreamed that they would see combat, that they maybe one of the eight such as these soldiers carrying a friend to a waiting plane.
It was during a recent reunion that I fully realized how many of my schoolmates had joined. I have been told that there are some in places not named and others whose names we often hear in the news.
These young men and women are fighting a fight much different than ever before and that although they are well trained...
God bless them and be with them. I for one, salute them.
Hi Shelley!
...and although they are well trained, they're only flesh and bone, and just like us, not designed to withstand a buried, roadside bomb blast.
I salute them as well! It's just the politics which is wrongheaded.
Our men and women in uniform, as willing as they are, along with their immediate families have been put into an impossible situation by a political decision.
As you know, Canada initially turned down the choice to partake in the invasion of Iraq in demented Bush's 'global fight against terrorism'(which BTW has become another smaller repeat of Vietnam losses and causalities for the U.S., which the progressive community around the world had been warning against from the get-go).
So, since the U.S. is Canada's largest trading partner, and Canada afraid of being banished to some form of economic nether region, Canada agreed to take up peace-keeping duties in Afghanistan, which quickly morphed into open warfare, with the other side imposing painful casualties on us.
Time to admit we made a mistake, and cut our losses.
I only see much more bloodshed on the foreseeable horizon, as a Muslim call to arms goes out, to additional thousands of young, disenfranchised Muslim men and women, to renew aggressions against the incoming U.S. troop deployment.
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