The Patrol (7 page)

While in Recce Platoon, an entirely separate entity formed by the battalion’s snipers and reconnaissance soldiers, he had a “disagreement” with the master sniper, and had been put back into B Company with us. We met on a live-fire night range. Neither of us had a partner, so we were paired to run through the “night pairs”
range, which involves using your night vision goggles (NVGs) and laser sight to hit pop-up targets at varying ranges. I didn’t do particularly well, it being only the third time I had ever worn NVGs and my second time on a live pairs range. However, Chris was amazing. As soon as I would see the indistinct shape of a target pop up, Chris’s laser would be on it and it would be down. Afterwards the sergeant-major, who was acting as safety staff, said “Corporal Nead, excellent job like always.” He then looked at me and said condescendingly, “Flavelle, stick to the radios.” It was advice I tried to take as often as possible. Six months later, as we walked out into Panjway, I took my every cue from Chris. More than anyone, he was the person I tried to emulate.

We turn off the main road, which is covered in gravel, and onto a hard-packed mud road leading west. We are getting farther and farther away from safety with each step. We enter the first village that we have to pass through; it has four different names depending on who you ask. This was a problem that we encountered in almost every village we entered; this part of Panjway is like an endless village, and locals identify with different geographical landmarks depending on where they live. So two locals living at opposite ends of the “block” might associate with a different tribe or mosque and call their village a different name. Although they all reside in the same group of buildings, no one seems to be able to agree on a name. The village is a conglomeration of mud huts and sea containers; it is entirely unremarkable.

The first time I passed through it, there had been a bustling market selling rotten bananas, random car parts, and cigarettes for two bucks a carton, and that was the white-guy price (Pine Lights, made in Afghanistan; you get what you pay for). It was a Friday, the Muslim holy day, and the mosques had unleashed a torrent of
people. I was surprised at how friendly and welcoming the villagers were. The kids crowded around, and the men seemed intensely interested in asking questions. Our terp (interpreter) was soon overrun with requests to engage in conversation, and one little boy even felt my rifle and looked through the sight. It was a very positive experience.

Two months later, in a village about four kilometres away, a child who was about 12 was used as a suicide bomber against our company. The man who remotely detonated the suicide vest exploited the fact that we didn’t, at that time, search children. Looking back on the amorphous mass of people that had crowded around us that day gives me shivers. We were in far more danger than I understood at the time.

The interesting thing about Afghanistan is that the Taliban follow a fairly strict fighting schedule. During the harvest (when we arrived in February), they were content to watch us and smoke the newly harvested hash. By the time I got back from leave, the game had changed. I miss those simpler times when I felt I could trust Afghans. We have an expression that is supposed to govern our interactions with the locals: “Be polite, be courteous, be prepared to kill everyone that you see.” When I arrived I thought this expression callous; old men detonating 12-year-old boys from across a field have a way of changing your perspective.

We are walking through a ghost town. There is no curfew in effect, but the average Afghan has come to realize that it’s safer to stay behind closed doors at night. We hear the nocturnal activities of villagers, lighting fires and talking in hushed tones. The streets are deserted. We follow a wadi through the village. Wadis are irrigation ditches, and they vary greatly in width and depth; they are ubiquitous throughout the “green belt” of Panjway, siphoning water away
from the Arghandab River. We stop, and I notice Chris covering a door to a compound. It is a large, metal, two-sided door, and he stands to the side, facing it with his weapon pointed toward the ground. He is ready to aim and fire at any threat that might come through the door. We walk a few more metres and stop again. Now I’m standing right beside the door and I realize that it is my responsibility to cover it. I stand at the edge of the door, and turn my body toward it, planting both feet firmly on the ground. I point my weapon at the ground, but brace my right hand on the pistol grip. I hope the door stays closed.

I hear a faint rustling on the other side, and suddenly the door opens violently. I feel each hair on my neck stand up and I raise my weapon, take off the safety, and flash my Maglite. This movement takes less than a second. I need to decide instantly if the man who is now illuminated is a threat.

“
Wadraga!
Stop!” I yell.

The man in my sights is old. He wears baby-blue man jammies (I’m not even sure what else to call them; they look like pyjamas) and a white turban. He has a look of utter terror on his face. Baby-blue is a good thing; different tribes wear different colours, almost like a uniform. Blue clothing is usually worn by a tribe that seems relatively friendly to us. Baby-blue, white, and brown are good; black is bad. The terrified look on his face and the fact that he recoiled from me instantly are also good signs. Luckily our terp, Peter, is standing right behind me. He says a few words in Pashto, and the man quickly closes the door. I can hear the metal bolt slam shut.

“What did he say?” I ask.

“He say he is going for ablutions for prayers. I tell him, Go back inside and stay for the rest of night.”

I haven’t encountered a Taliban suicide bomber; I’ve encountered an old man who didn’t hear us moving through his village and
picked a poor time to walk out his front door. The Maglite attached to my weapon is the brightest flashlight I have ever seen. When he opened the door, it must have looked like the afterlife was waiting for him.

I turn off my Maglite and take my finger off the trigger. I am surprised at how close I was to killing this man. In that brief, terrifying second I felt reassured by the unaccustomed feeling of hard metal on my forefinger. From my first day in the army, I have been trained never to put my finger on the trigger unless I intend to clear or fire the weapon. Overseas, I carry my weapon almost everywhere; it is never farther than 10 metres away from me. In Sperwan Ghar, I often go whole weeks without putting my finger on the trigger. For the most part it is a weighty burden; but in one second it metamorphosed into the weapon that it was designed to be. I feel powerful, and nervous. I am glad we are moving on.

I feel bad for that man and the few more grey hairs I’ve given him. I also feel better about how I might respond in a stressful situation. I had been 100 percent prepared to pull the trigger if he had been armed. I walk with my head held a little higher.

The adrenalin surge engendered by my little encounter stays with me as I continue to walk. I feel attuned to the night; I feel that I can do anything. We stop beside the wadi and sit down while our lead call sign figures out the best route. From across the wadi I hear a sound that makes me bring my weapon up again.

“
Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
”

Men are yelling “God is great!” from the other side of the wadi. I flip down my NVG and turn it on. I see a few guys lying prostrate on the ground.
It’s on now
, I think. I watch them further; nothing happens. I don’t see any weapons.

“Peter, what the fuck is going on?”

“They’re praying; it’s that time of day.”

Christ! That’s two separate groups of people I’ve almost lit up
in the span of 15 minutes. My hands shake; I’ve got to get better control of my nerves.

Afghanistan is an eerie place at night. It is pitch dark and perfectly silent now; the only sound comes from the flowing wadi. We try to avoid using our NVG, as it is better to preserve good night vision. The patrol is beginning to take on a quixotic quality.

We are on our feet and walking again, faster now as the patrol hits its stride. We stick to the road until we are outside the village, and I struggle to keep up. The weight on my back is more noticeable now, and sweat begins to drip from under my helmet. We have left the hard pack and are following the path of the wadi as it winds around grape fields. We bash our way into these fields and the countryside passes in a blur. We stop every few hundred metres to observe the area and to allow those in front to figure out what route to take.

Every time we stop, I have to make a decision: should I stand, take a knee, or sit down? Standing allows me to start moving instantly, but it’s not the best tactical posture as it makes me an obvious target. Taking a knee is the best tactical stance, but it quickly becomes immensely uncomfortable despite my knee pad. Sitting is the most comfortable, but it is hard to get back up and, more importantly, when sitting I cover more surface area that hasn’t been touched by those in front of me, increasing my chances of setting off an IED. Every time we stop, I wait, look around, and try to get a feel for the situation. After a few seconds, I think about taking a knee; often I sit. I don’t know if somebody who has never patrolled can understand how much satisfaction there is in sitting down. Getting the weight off my shoulders and leaning back is the most comfortable state I can imagine in comparison with standing.

Our fast pace continues unabated until the OC stops suddenly. He is staring at the ground. He flips down his NVG and scans the area. He turns on his blue flashlight and leans over.

“I think this is an IED command wire,” he says.

He asks me to come take a look, and I walk up beside him and scan the area with my NVG. I don’t see anything on the ground.

We push back and provide a 10-metre cordon around the area. The OC uses my radio to call the engineers, and soon we see the grunting face of Warrant Officer (WO) Terry Wolaniuk coming up with another engineer. I take a closer look at the engineer with the WO and realize that it’s Allan, the signaller from my home unit in Calgary. Allan was one of my roommates in university and we are close friends. Now we have been drawn together on a desolate dirt road in Panjway. I smile and whisper a greeting. He smiles back. There is no time for pleasantries, however, as he has to help the WO defuse this potential IED. WO Wolaniuk walks close to the command wire, leans over, and flashes his Maglite.

“It’s a fucking twig.”

On patrol, we walk in a very rigid order, known as the
order of march
. My position is right behind the OC, who walks behind Chris. I walk in front of the terp, Peter, who is in front of the forward observation officer (FOO) party (I figure it’s just more fun if you call it a party). Our terp never really gets the concept of the order of march and keeps trying to pass me. I, however, stay rigidly in position behind the officer commanding for the remainder of the patrol.

Focusing on the man in front of me takes up more of my time than anything else on patrol.
How far ahead is he? Where is he looking? Shit, I’m too close, too far away. It’s dark, where the fuck did he go? I can’t even see him.
Concerns of this nature constantly plague my mind.

The man in front of me is Major Mike Lane, the officer commanding of B Company. He looks about the same as any other Canadian officer. I’ve learned to tell the difference between an officer and an enlisted man, even out of uniform. He has short black hair, and a Homer Simpson five o’clock shadow that is never fully
grown or fully shaved. He is shorter than the average soldier, a trait that has earned him the endearment “Lord Farquaad,” after the character in
Shrek.
When we met, I thought him distant and aloof, but otherwise an average infantry officer. He chewed tobacco non-stop, and the first distinct memory I have of him is with a wad of dip in his lip.

We were in Shilo at the time on an “air mobile” exercise. The plan was to practise getting dropped into an operational environment, and then getting picked up. We were to use Black Hawk helicopters brought in from the United States (with American pilots), to simulate the reality on the ground (Canada did not, at that time, have helicopters in Afghanistan). Of course, this being the Canadian military, the helicopters broke down before they even took off. We waited around for four hours after the scheduled H hour (military term for start time, it stands for “Hour hour”). Finally, we rode into the field in MLVWs–Medium Logistic Vehicle Wheeled, usually shortened to ML—standard, reliable transport trucks built in the 1960s, but still going strong. Most of us believed this was inevitable and few soldiers had actually planned on riding a chopper. We were told that a part needed to fix the chopper was being emergency FedExed and would arrive that night. We carried on with the first part of the patrol and moved into a laager.
Laager
(we pronounce it “leaguer”) is the army word for defensive circle, in this case a ring of soldiers looking outwards. After a sleepy radio shift, I settled down to a cold Manitoba night and slept in the fetal position on the ground. As dawn approached, it was my turn on the radio again. I watched as the OC gave orders to his assembled platoon commanders.

“Orders—General Situation—We are going to be getting the choppers at about 0730 this morning. We will be mounting up and departing to this grid, Objective Molson.” As he gave his orders to a group of keen young officers kneeling in front of him, pen and paper in hand, I watched Major Lane spit tobacco into a 500ml
water bottle. I remember thinking that I had never seen an officer chew, let alone spit into a water bottle during orders. I soon realized that this was just one of many infantry foibles I had never encountered before. At that moment, I received a message on the radio:

“
2, this is 0—be advised, there will be no helicopters today, all movement will be conducted via Mike Lima [MLVW]. I say again, there will be no helicopters today.”

No explanation, no detail, and no reason were given as to why we wouldn’t be receiving the choppers. Instead, all we got was the voice of God coming over the radio and spoiling our plans.