16 Dec - 24 Dec 2009
This entry is dedicated to the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who are are serving overseas, on a ship away from port, or deployed to CFS Alert over Christmas. Thank you for your selflessness and your dedication; it may seem like you’re putting your life on hold while things carry on back here without you but it’ll just make the time together when you’re back that much sweeter.
God bless and stay safe.
The lead up to Christmas is always a bit of a dangerous time in theatre. People are easily and often distracted by the thoughts of what friends and families are doing back home, or what they’d be doing if they weren’t in a place like (insert country) right now. It can also cause people to become grumpy, sullen or disinterested in what they are doing…especially if they’ve already been there for a while.
Reading my journal entries for this particular week on my last tour its safe to say that this was exactly my headspace at that point in time. I was at almost a full four months into my tour and still looking at 50 plus days until my HLTA (Time away/vacation). The family was going to be together for games, food and fellowship and while I it’s easy and glib to say, “it’s okay, I signed up for it,” the truth is it is a real downer.
However, the family that you make while on tour definitely takes the sting out of being away over the holidays. Forged in the moments where you’ve faced death, injury, successes and failures, you develop relationships more intimate than you ever managed with someone you spent your whole life growing up around. There’s also something surreal about being in a war zone over Christmas. The morale packages from all over the country bring the comforts of home to the isolated patch of earth you find yourself. The cooks almost always put on an impressive feast, within the limitations of what’s available, and invariably if you put Canadians together anywhere for any length of time they will figure out a way to play a game of hockey.
I count my memories of the Christmases I spent in Afghanistan among my favorite, despite how I may have felt at the time. I hope that others who’ve had the same experience, or will in the future, can look back and say the same.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and as always…All the best.
John.
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16 Dec 09
It’s amazing how fast the days go by when we are going in and out every two days. Again, pretty uneventful cycle of patrolling. The ANA under Dowa John have regressed in skill and the effort they put forth while on patrol; this made for two frustrating and disheartening days. They were sleeping in the all around defence, talking on cell phones, doubling back on the same route and flat out lying to Capt Henderson. “Red Eagle” (Redi Gul) came back from leave the same time as Trev and that was an improvement in affairs. Sound like he had a good time on his leave. Only 58 more days to go until I get to leave this stinkhole. I can’t wait, I’ve really let my attitude towards this Kandak and what I am doing here slip. Definitely need to pull up my socks…shortly. Back to Ashoque and our new setup tomorrow.
20 Dec 09
Got back yesterday after another patrol cycle out at SP Ashoque. It was by far the least productive of our rotations but was equally the most relaxing. We only patrolled twice and hosted two Shuras (meetings) the intent of which was to discuss the burning of the elephant grass around the SP. I finally convinced the 6-1 Kandak ANA to let me put their dog with the broken leg. The idiots had all kinds of demands like having to shoot it outside the SP but no one could get near it since it was diseased and meaner than hell itself. I fashioned a leash and tried to lasso the damn thing to take it outside but it freaked out and attacked me. Thank god it had a busted leg. Needless to say I didn’t care what the ANA thought, I yelled at them to take the dog outside if they were so concerned but they wouldn’t and I wasn’t going to stay on that brick wall forever so I pulled out Justine* (9mm browning hi-power) and put one round neatly through the back of its head. It was a clean kill and afterwards we took it outside and burnt it because it was impossible to dig in that rock hard earth. Built a piss tube in the far corner of the SP for us to use so we don’t have to use the same shitters the ANA use all the time.
24 Dec 09
Angela’s birthday and Christmas Eve, man I wish I was home for both! Ang & Adam sounded good as did Mom; Dad wasn’t home but I’ll call him tomorrow morning. Back from Ashoque again and settled in for a bit of relaxing. Tried to sort out some nonsense with Capt Graver about Med coverage for Kakarez but think it’s a losing battle. Whatever, I’m past the point of caring what plans are made now. Had a beer call tonight which was nice, Darryl and I got to split a bottle of red wine (South African) which was pretty good and then I went and played some floor hockey. I played goal and for 1hr I completely forgot I was in Afghanistan! It was the most fun I’d had in 3 months. The CDS and some cronies are coming out to wish us well but are royally screwing up our morning because we have to parade at 0745. Merry Christmas indeed…do us a favor and stay in KAF. We just want to be left alone with our family to have fun and relax.
* Justine is the nickname I gave my sidearm on this tour. It got that name because the RG-31 that I drove was so loaded with spare ammo, rockets, fuel, batteries and other accoutrements of war that exiting it normally was exceedingly difficult, to say nothing of escaping from it in the event of a fire after being struck by and IED. So the old Browning Hi-power, while heavy and mostly useless as a service weapon, did provide me some peace of mind as insurance…just-in-case…hence “Justine”.