The following articles of interest to the Regimental Family have been culled
from the latest RCAC Association Military News Digest:
Canadian troops march to Kandahar
By JOHN WARD
Canadian Press
As Canada moves its main military base in Afghanistan to a far more volatile
region, a squadron of dragoons is riding shotgun - on the lookout for bad
guys and booby traps.
After more than two years in Kabul, helping a NATO force bring stability to
the capital, Canada is tackling a tougher challenge in the southern city of
Kandahar. Just moving the equipment and supplies for the new camp is a
dangerous job.
Major Andrew Atherton and 170 of his Royal Canadian Dragoons provide escorts
for the truck convoys carrying the makings of the new base along a two-lane
highway threatened by roadside booby traps and suicide bombers, as well as
the normal hazards of dust, heat and bad drivers.
Major Atherton's Coyote and LAV III light armoured vehicles, armed with
25-mm cannons and machineguns, provide the security the convoys need for the
10-hour, 450-kilometre trip. He can also call on heavier elements, including
air support from other members of the NATO coalition.
"It's a risky business," Major Atherton said Tuesday from Kabul.
"We're mitigating that risk by the equipment that we have. Certainly the
convoys that are going down there are quite well armed, they are quite
heavily protected."
That kind of firepower is indicative of the new, dangerous job the Canadians
face in the south, one that is likely to mean real fighting and much higher
casualties.
Kandahar is a far different place from Kabul, where a new, five-star hotel
opened Tuesday.
"It is night and day, Kabul to Kandahar," said Rudyard Griffiths, executive
director of the Dominion Institute who is just back from a visit to both
cities.
"Kandahar is not just a different place in Afghanistan, it's a completely
different mission."
Kandahar, he said, is much more like Iraq. There are radical Islamic
elements, high levels of poverty and a porous border with Pakistan through
which men and arms percolate with ease.
"We're moving from what was, in a sense, a stability and peacemaking
operation in Kabul to a very different mission in Kandahar which could
include everything from an Iraqi-style insurgency and putting down that
insurgency down to elements of diplomacy and aid that need to be rolled out
in the region to stabilize it."
There are about 1,000 Canadian personnel in Afghanistan now. They are
shutting down the base in Kabul and opening up in Kandahar.
Kandahar lies in a mountain fold on the Central Asian plateau. It's an old
city, founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. Its people are
largely drawn from the Pashtun tribe, the largest single ethnic group in
Afghanistan.
The other main centre for the Pashtuns is Peshawar, in neighbouring
Pakistan, and the intervening border is often seen as little more than an
inconvenient line drawn by foreigners.
Mr. Griffiths said bringing Kandahar under the sway of a distant government
in Kabul is a tricky task, given Afghan history.
"The times when Kabul and Kandahar were ruled over by the same government
are few and far between and usually only when there was an application of
pretty brutal force to back up an occupation.
"We're trying to create a state here out of some component parts that may
not always want to be in the same state."
Major Atherton may not be an expert in Afghan history, but he has a
soldier's grasp of the reality of the country.
"As you transit further south ... the threat level starts to get higher and
higher. It's a little bit more risky as you go south."
By February, Canada will have about 2,000 soldiers based in Kandahar,
including a provincial reconstruction team to help rebuild infrastructure,
security elements, a medical detachment and a headquarters.
Part of the job will involve development, but part will involve facing off
against insurgent elements and intractable remnants of the old Taliban
regime.
While the Kabul deployment cost three lives and a handful of wounded, the
toll could be much higher around Kandahar.
Defence Minister Bill Graham has been speaking across Canada in recent
months, warning of just that.
"Canadians should be under no illusion; Kandahar is a very complex,
challenging and dangerous environment and mission," he said in a recent
speech.
"The part of Afghanistan we are going to is among the most unstable and
dangerous in the country."
The risk of injury and death are high, he said.
Mr. Griffiths wonders if Canada is ready for dead soldiers coming home.
"I don't think Canadians realize this is our largest international, overseas
operation since the Korean war," he said.
"I think we are going to look at something here of an order of magnitude
that Canada and Canadians are not used to."
Major Atherton, who has been living on the sharp end for four months, says
the mission is important, despite the risks.
"We've made a difference among the Afghan people," he said.
_____
Canada may be ready to make its Victoria Cross
'Most important honour'
by Chris Wattie
National Post
Sixty years after the last Canadian won the Victoria Cross, the highest
award for bravery in the British Commonwealth, the government is preparing
to produce the first prototype of Canada's version of the coveted
decoration.
Canada has had its own version of the Victoria Cross for more than a decade,
but it has never been awarded and until now has existed "only on paper,"
according to military spokesmen.
But a senior Defence Department source, speaking on condition of anonymity,
says the government is about to commission a jeweller to produce the first
example of the Canadian award.
France Langlois, a spokeswoman for Michaelle Jean, the Governor-General,
would not give details on the project. "Right now they are talking about it
... [but] no decision has been made," she said.
"It's our most important honour -- we don't want to rush it."
The Victoria Cross has been awarded to 94 Canadians in the 150 years since
it was created, but it almost disappeared from the Canadian system of
military medals and awards in the 1980s.
And some observers feared the dull bronze cross and maroon ribbon, awarded
for valour "in the presence of the enemy," might never again adorn the chest
of a Canadian soldier.
Chris McCreery, the author of The Canadian Honours System, said that when
Canada instituted its own system of medals and awards in 1967, the Victoria
Cross was retained only reluctantly.
In the early 1990s, a proposal to replace it with a "made in Canada" award
was leaked to the press and the resulting storm of protest forced the
government of then-prime minister Brian Mulroney to keep the Victoria Cross.
However, the government created a new Canadian Victoria Cross with a
slightly different motto -- the original words "For Valour" on the cross
were replaced by the Latin "Pro Valore" -- and Mr. McCreery said the
government never intended to award it.
"There was a huge amount of reluctance to keep the VC, let alone award it to
anyone," he said. "That was the mentality [in the government] from the early
'70s until very recently."
Until now, the Canadian Victoria Cross has existed only as a design. A
sample of the decoration has never been produced since it was introduced.
Examples of the second- and third-ranked awards for bravery -- the Star of
Military Valour and the Medal of Military Valour -- have been produced.
"They've been arguing about this for the past year and they should have
gotten this done a long time ago," Mr. McCreery said. "A Victoria Cross
isn't something you can just whip up in your basement."
Both Australia and New Zealand have introduced their own versions of the
Victoria Cross as their nations' highest gallantry awards. Neither country
has handed out one of their new versions of the 150-year-old decoration,
though four Australians won Victoria Crosses in the Vietnam War.
The last Canadian to win the Victoria Cross was Lieutenant (Naval) Robert
Hampton Gray, a pilot who was killed in an attack on Japanese warships in
the last days of the Second World War.
The last surviving Canadian recipient of a Victoria Cross, Ernest "Smokey"
Smith, died this year and historians say it might be some time before
another Canadian wins the award.
"I don't think the government even considered the possibility of awarding
anyone a VC," says historian Arthur Bishop, a Second World War veteran and
the son of fighter ace Billy Bishop, who won a Victoria Cross during the
First World War.
"If we're going to have a Canadian Victoria Cross for gallantry, then there
bloody well ought to be a readiness to give one to deserving recipients."
Mr. Bishop, who has written a book on Canada's Victoria Cross winners, said
he does not believe any Canadians have been passed over for the award in the
past 60 years. "But that's academic," he said.
"I don't think there was even a mechanism to recommend or award someone the
Victoria Cross.... I doubt whether some of these government people had even
heard of the VC."
But with Canadian soldiers taking on increasingly aggressive -- and
increasingly dangerous -- missions in Afghanistan, many observers believe
any reluctance to recognize their bravery is fading.
"I think there's been a change in attitude since Sept. 11," says historian
Jack Granatstein.
"In the past, the idea that our soldiers might actually shoot someone just
wasn't acknowledged ... now, the government seems to be OK with that.
"I have very little doubt that if someone did something that was worthy of a
VC ... in Afghanistan, they will be awarded a VC."
VC FACTS
"The Victoria Cross shall be awarded for the most conspicuous bravery, a
daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to
duty, in the presence of the enemy."
- The Victoria Cross was instituted by Royal Warrant in 1856 but was
made retroactive to 1854 to cover the period of the Crimean War. It has been
bestowed 1,355 times since 1854.
- The first presentation was made in Hyde Park on June 26, 1857,
where Queen Victoria decorated 62 officers and men for actions during the
Crimean War.
- Each cross is still made by the same London jewellers, Messrs
Hancocks & Co., from the bronze of Chinese cannons captured from the
Russians at the siege of Sevastopol in 1855. The remnants of the cannon
bronze is still stored in special vaults and an estimated 358 ounces remain,
enough for a further 85 VCs.
- At least three witnesses are required to make sworn written
statements as to the exact circumstances of the action involved.
- It was not until 1920 that an official amendment was made allowing
the VC to be awarded posthumously. It has been estimated that the chances of
surviving an act for which a VC is awarded is only one in 10.
- The largest number of VCs won in a single day was 24 at the second
relief of Lucknow on Nov. 16, 1857, during the Indian Mutiny. The largest
number won in a single action was 11 at Rorke's Drift on Jan. 22, 1879,
during the Zulu War.
- Fourteen men not born British or Commonwealth citizens have
received the VC; five Americans, one Belgian, three Danes, two Germans, one
Swede, a Swiss and a Ukrainian.
- Since 1945 the VC has been awarded only 12 times (two during the
Falklands War in 1982 and one this year for actions in Iraq).
- When the VC was instituted, it came with a special pension of 10
pounds per annum. In 1959, the pension was increased to 100 pounds and in
1995 to 1,300 pounds.
_____
Canadians get look at danger in Afghan hills: First long-range patrol delves
deep into territory run by Taliban, al Qaeda
By Matthew Fisher
The Ottawa Citizen
BOA GARANG, Afghanistan - A Canadian long-range patrol penetrated deep into
the mountain redoubts of the Taliban and al-Qaeda for the first time this
week.
"We're getting a look at the ground in what will be Canada's AP (area of
operations) beginning next February," said Maj. Andrew Lutes of Edmonton --
a member of the Provincial Reconstruction Team -- who commanded the
bone-jarring 37-hour patrol along rock-strewn tracks.
The small convoy met district chiefs and police chiefs along the way and
pondered what aid projects might work in communities without electricity or
medical services.
The odyssey from Kandahar to this remote village, less than 15 kilometres
from the Pakistani border, provided snapshots of the perils that lie ahead
when Canada switches early next year to combat operations in what has long
been a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold, after several years of keeping the
peace 500 kilometres to the north in Kabul.
To get to Garang, the Canadians had to drive through the Wam Pass, where the
Taliban is known to set up ambushes. "You can be sure our presence was
noted. You can see us coming from a long way away. I expect there were
people watching us all the way," said Maj. Lutes, 32.
Along the way, the convoy suffered four flat tires, several broken shock
absorbers and problems with two engines.
"It's a lot more primitive than Kandahar City, that's for sure," said
Sgt.
Jamie Bradley, 30, of Deer Lake, NL.
"It is going to be very difficult to operate here. Because of how bad the
winters are, and the terrible state of the roads, I am guessing these routes
are not going to be passable from the end of this month until May."
The heavily armed Canadian party travelled the same tracks on which a French
commando died and two others were wounded in separate incidents this fall
that involved landmines buried by insurgents. They also used a road on the
return journey to Kandahar where, earlier in the day, terrorists detonated a
bomb by remote control that just missed a U.S. patrol.
Later in the day, French soldiers talked of the frustrations the Canadians
may face when they begin regular operations in the mountains.
"This is a vicious war, mostly being fought with mines," said one commando
with years of experience fighting in Africa.
"The Taliban never want to fight us directly. We usually only bump into them
by accident.
"The Taliban could be everywhere. We don't know. When you get near them,
they throw away their weapons and claim to just be normal Afghans."
Pointing to a nearby mountain, the soldier, who was not allowed to give his
name, said: "That's where the war is. You would not believe how many people
live up there. The only way to patrol there is on foot."
The French, who rotate through Garang every few weeks, described a recent
fight that was unusual in that it lasted an hour. The Taliban launched more
than 10 rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
Ramin Tanha, an anesthetist who works as the French interpreter, said while
the enemy was usually referred to as the Taliban by everyone, "they aren't
all Talibs. They often have different ideas in their hearts."