The World Trade Center in New York City.

Apparently, a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center.

We understand that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

We have serious news of a major possible air crash in the United States.

An incredible plane crash into the World Trade Center.

Oh my God!

Oh, my God, another plane has just hit.

Oh, another one just hit.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Roger.

We're climbing to 3000 sir and it looks like that aircraft has impacted the west side of the Pentagon Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America.

I, um, unfortunately, we'll be going back to Washington after my remarks.

But today, we've had a national tragedy.

We were the immediate reaction force for Canada's army.

I knew then that that incident was probably gonna have reverberations across the world.

That event was going to change what I was doing for the next 10 years.

This is the real deal.

You actually think, what am I supposed to be feeling?

Am I supposed to be afraid?

Am I supposed to you know, like, what emotions should I be feeling?

In the end, you're kind of calm,because you don't have a lot of control.

You're as ready as you can be.

You know, they gave you live bullets and you've done a bunch of training, and so whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

It was like another day at the office.

The Kandahar Airfield at that time was left over from the Russian wars.

There wasn't much there, bunch of blown up buildings The American Marines were holding the airfield at the time.

They had just weeks prior, finished off the last big battle with the Taliban at the one building on the airfield, which carries the name today of the Taliban last stand.

That's the name of the building.

The airfield was surrounded by a whole bunch of minefields, really thick minefields that the Soviets had had in place to protect the airfield when they were there.

And so we lived daily really at the edge of or within a minefield, and there were desperate hours.

We quickly came to learn to love our American brethren.

They accepted us with open arms.

I think Canadians underestimated the moral outrage, the deep anger that the attacks on the twin Towers had created in the United States.

One of the things that kind of brought it home to us was the first coyote, the first of the Canadian reconnaissance vehicles to roll off a C-17 came out, and the first or second one had an I love New York bumper sticker on the front and it drove hardened soldiers to tears.

When I saw that.

Yeah... When I saw that, I would never sit on my ass when the Canadian flag passed me.

And I never have it.

One of the training things that we had planned that day was rehearsals with the Black Hawk helicopters for how to load casualties was on to Black Hawks.

And we knew we were going to ranges that night to Tarnak Farms, thought nothing of it just another training exercise.

It was going good, I didn't even want them to know I was there.

It was getting near the end we heard the jet.

I heard heard the bomb hit.

I knew it was it came from an aircraft, and Lorne was, I didn't know about his eye.

He was just laying there and said,They're all dead, they're all dead.

And Lorne's leg was bleing big time.

So I put a field dressing on him.

So I went to the next guy.

So I looked at Dyer and I said okay, there's nothing I can do for him.

I went to the next guy.

We started organizing and media-vac and waiting.

I had wounded people and I had dead people.

And then we started to do an area sweep because we thought we were missing people.

I still see that glowow stick field, a lot of times at night, or that flashing light in the distance.

It's eerie.

But you look back on bad situations or bad days and you just try to make sure that when they do happen, that you can act like some of those individuals that were on the range.

and bring order to chaos.

We weren't prepared for it.

We had some body bags for the soldiers.

We didn't have our own flags to put on the coffins.

We didn't have the transfer cases to get them back to Canada.

So of course, we had to go to the Americans and borrow the transfer cases off the Americans.

To that point, they they were bringing the bodies in and put them on the plane at night, no fanfare, and send them home.

We recognized that the Americans were very, very sensitive about their casualties.

I handed it over to Sergeant Major Butters, so my basic direction was to him, just do it upright.

We've got to celebrate the sacrifice.

And that's what he did.

It was a monumental moment.

Colonel Stogran came up to me and said to me, he says, Sergeant Major, he says, "I don't know what you're going to do."

He said, "but I want a proper send off."

So basically, I went back to my tent, and I sat down and I thought to myself, okay, if I was one of those those guys, how would I want my unit to send me home?

Yeah.

Of course, I sat down and I wrote out the format that I thought I wanted to do the wayI wanted it to run.

And that's when I came up with the idea of this Ramp Ceremony, and the basically wrote the format for Ramp Ceremonies in Afghanistan.

How do we ensure that any threat that we had seen to date wasn't going to get to the airfield, that included rockets and they included mortars, those were the two big ones.

And we did a plan.

I mean, there was a planning process at the level of detail, I would argue and of rival Anaconda.

But how do we do this?

this the right way?

To then put a large part of the Canadian contingent on a ramp, wholly reasonable, if we could mitigate all of the risks.

So I think the natural progression of that is, is that do it with dignity and respect and with as many people paying their respects as possible.

Rips your heart out.

There's nothing you can do, except at that point, bestow the honor and try to help in terms of the suffering and the pain.

Let's start taking care of our people.

And because everybody's traumatized at this point.

That's where leadership has to kick in.

And that's where Pat really had to kick in, because I' had a casualty since in 50 years.

You're it, right?

You're the commander.

That takes strength, that takes a lot of strength.

I strong man.

because he's hurting.

And people people don't realize how How much that hurts.

I had trauma, like everybody else, and I lost four a soldiers that day.

But we're not fighting as Canadians and Americans.

We're now brothers in arms.

You're okay Jumper You're okay Jumper In every heart there is a room A sanctuary safe and strong To heal the wounds from lovers past Until I knew one comes along.

While our lives will never be the same again, and the loss has left terrible scars, having an entire nation mourn with us has really aided the healing process for everyone who is close to Sergeant Léger, Corporal Dyer, Private Smith, and Private Green.

They've enriched our lives and the lives of everyone who knew them, and they've left the legacy in 3 PPCLI.

They have not died in vain.

They have inspired us to excel in our mission, to ensure that Canadians can continue to live without fear from the scourge of terrorism.

We will remember them.

May they rest in peace.

God bless these proud Canadians, God bless Canada.

And so it goes And so it goes and you're the only one who knows.

Canadians laid down their lives sometime for king and country, sometimes out of a sense of duty or adventure.

But always for the sake of the greater good.. We laid them in graves where they fell under monuments to their sacrifice.

monuments seldom seen by their loved ones.

They laid down their lives against tyranny and oppression.

Be buried commanded, fell, remembered more by the people they saved than by their own countrymen.

They laid down their lives at a defence of a new united world only to become a forgotten sacrifice in a forgotten war dedicated to peace.

And again, we buried them where they fell.

And so we chose to honor our fallen brothers and sisters and bid them farewell from the battlefield.

They were gone, but not forgotten, and we were forever changed.

We as a people had a great yearning to be seen as contributing to world of peace.

Unknown to the Canadian public, between the years of 1956 and 2002, Canada lost at least 130 soldiers, sailors, and airmen in peacekeeping operations.

And when they fell, they were quietly brought home, their sacrifice never to become part of the Canadian consciousness, never to understand the price we've paid for peace.

The QMSI of infantry battalion normally doesn't deploy to the field or in operations.

Colonel Ian Hope, asked me if I would deploy with the unit.

to look after mortory affairs and to carry on with the Ramp Ceremonies.

The day I arrived in Kandahar, our diplomat, Glyn Barry, was killed.

In 2006, with the provincial Reconstruction team, we had a fateful day on the 15th of January, 2006, when a vehicle born IED attacked a lightly armored convoy of Love W's.

and in that convoy was our head of mission, Glyn Barry.

And although we'd suffered four casualties from 3 PPCLI in 2002 on Operation Apollo at Tarnak Firms, and we'd suffered casualties in Kabul in the interceding three years.

This was the first combat related casualty in Kandahar that we'd suffered.

And it was particularly tenuous because it was a civilian, not someone who was characteristically designed to protect themselves.

And although he was surrounded by beloved uniformed soldiers, the only one that was killed on that fateful day was the head of mission.

Allahu Akbar He aimed for the B pillar in our Glendon Wagon, and Jeff, at that moment, called car right, because he knew that car was coming straight toward him.

So he I swerved left The bad guy then hit us on theC pillar on the rear of the vehicle, killing Glyn Barry instantly.

I lost my left leg.

thrown of the vehicle, tumbled around.

Jeff with his head split open and thrown into a sewer.

Will was beaten up and broken bones, and he was unconscious for basically three weeks There was Glyn Barry, and there was my Jeep, and then there was another gun truck behind me.

So all I remember is for that one there, I remember driving.

Seeing the vehicle hit our vehicle in front of us.

It looked like an engine block coming towards us.

So I ducked.

So I remember we got out of the vehicle, and this is what I always say.

Whatever we do to our Canadian soldiers, whatever we treat them like, whatever we train'em like, we're doing it right.

cause I've seen a lot of bad s*** happen, and I'm fascinated what the young private does.

I'm shocked by what the young private does.

And for this case here, my young driver, Jake Petten, he's a Warrant Officer now in 3 PPCLI oh 1 PPCLI.

Brand new kid.

No tours under his belt, not the under his belt.

He was our driver.

He got to the vehicle right away, and he saw Franklin first I reach for my tournique, but it's in my leg, which is now not attached to me five feet away.

What actually happened, 100%, that I know what I did and didn't do.

Maybe I just sat there stunned, bleeding.

Don't know.

Jake Petten found Franklin.

He put the tourniquet on Franklin.

Saved Franklin's life.

The only one that was killed on that fateful day was the head of mission, and that had a transformational impact in Ottawa Immediately, they recalled all of the other government departments.

Both members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who were prepared to shoulder those threats, as well as Aaron Dorgan, the other member of Foreign Affairs, and Michael Callen were recalled, as Ottawa collectively wrestled with national and multinational objectives in Afghanistan, the threat level, our contribution, and the force structure that we had there to protect, not only the military elements, but the civilian elements.

I wish we could have sent Mr.

Barry home with a proper ramp ceremony, but we had just arrived.

And so all our assets were focused on that.

And then there was this smaller operation that Ian wanted to run to try and clear the Taliban out of thearea of the White school.

So I had explained to Ian, you know, I said, Ian, you know, look, we've got all our enablers, all of our resources focused on this operation up in Helmand.

Like if you get into trouble down south here, I can't help you out.

We don't have anything that can help you out.

You'll have to just pull back.

And of course, they got into trouble, and then they had a problem pulling back and there were desperate hours.

We just called a white school because there was a white building and on the map, it was called White School.

But it was definitely not a school.

And my understanding is what took place there is the Taliban went in and sent all the kids home and then proceeded to cut off the heads of the teachers that were there then subsequently turned it into a fortified position.

Why there?

They used it during the Soviet War.

It's a place they used for 10 years during the Soviet War.

So they wanted to do it again.

We leave early in the morning.

and I can remember at one of the points we turned right before we were getting into the area.

I saw someone down the road directing traffic into where we needed to go.

And I looked and said,oh, geez that's Colonel Hope.

I I normally lead in any of these things, because my driver and my crew commander and I, we know the area.

Colonel Hope was a very much lead from the front commander there, which certainly earn my respect on this respect of so many.

And the fighting echelon in this case was part of reconnaissance platoon and 9th platoon They decided because they were getting a lot of signatures heat signatures in their thermals that instead of reconnaissance platoon wit their light vehicles moving in we'd put the LAV's up front.

And as we pushed the LAV's quietly forward, they began to discern fighters, that is, Afghans with weaponry that were not A&A and they were Taliban.

I gave the word we took out the OP on our right, and then and we lit up the guys coming coming down the road.

Then after that I just turned into the Wild West.

That's when everything on that side of the river started shooting at us, and we started working way down and my vehicle hit an IED.

So I just remember it was just this loud explosion behind me.

And I just remember being pushed forward on the top of my turret and being covered in like dirt and singe marks and everything.

This was a very loud, very prominent explosion behind me.

And right away, it came over the radio that our headquarters LAV, our 33, with Shaun Peterson, got hit by an IED.

Peterson's vehicle hit his LAV hit an IED, which killed Corporal Reed, the driver.

Everything caught kind of came to a grinding halt, but we also knew, okay, we have to set up a perimeter but we have to be very careful about how we do that, because now we know there's IDs in the road there could be, you know, explososives anywhere.

So that changes the mission completely.

So instead of a coordinate search in the area where the enemy is, I now have to think about evacuation of a vehicle.

At that point, we had to wait for Medevac, because we can't go forward until we get our casualties out of the way.

Colonel Hope called in to Medevac, got the Blackhawk helicopters in for Medevac and got the casualties out, at that point.

However, we have to move around to get this vehicle secured.

In the moving around our engineer vehicle strikes another IED, and there's wounded there.

So we have successive men medical evacuation helicopters coming in, we're evacuating wounded, and we need a recovery plan for these LAV's.

That to me, is the mission.

And I get a radio transmission from Brigade again saying, intelligence is pretty much certain that there's a wounded Taliban commander in the white schoolhouse, which is about 7, 800 meters away from our forward troops.

Can we get them?

So I go forward and I talk to the lead folks, which is Sergeant Vaugh Ingram who's taken over 9 platoon from Shaun Peterson, who's been evacuated and Captain Hamilton, Jon Hamilton.

so I guess we're going to do this by foot.

And I said, no, it's no problem sir."

He goes,So, I want you to get together with Sergeant Vaughn Ingram.

You need to get in and take that school.

And we get, you know, Hell yeah we can do this.

We've got some A&P, Afghan National Police.

We'll go with them and we'll move this way.

The phrase at the time was put an Afghan face on it, put an Afghan face on it, so we were bloody well going to put an Afghan face on it, and support them as they moved in to take the school.

As it was when they moved towards the White school, a pretty intensive fire came from two sides and the Afghan National Police disappeared.

And all of a sudden, the police are running past past us down the road.

And Hamilton quite well forward close to his school, asked what to do, and I said, "Can you get there, yes, then show them how it's done.

Willy, I need you to take the C6 and get into an Overwatch position.

Roger that, I'll take them up over there And we went, and ah on foot, doing fire and foot movement.

At this time, small arms fire became incredibly intense.

RPGs, flying overtop of our heads hitting heading around us One of our guys was a Charlie Company guy, got shot from the helmet, and the bullet just went around and didn't actually penetrate his helmet.

We were slowly making our way up there.

And I must add, at that point, it was as I recall, maybe around 11 in the morning or noon, noon hour around there, and it was about 52 degrees or something like that.

stick your head in an oven in there and that's kind of what it felt like, the Afghan heat there.

We'd had a couple guys that like the heat had gotten to them, and they were just they were completely out of action.

They're just like, hey, we can't even function.

There's no way we can cross this field.

Jon and Vaughn made the plan, okay, we're going to move in groups you know, one moving, one covering, one moving, one covering to cover this open terrain, and Willy, we're going to have you on the run right flank.

I was inside just on the edge of the marijuana field up on a little high feature with Bryce and Mark with the C6.

By the time I made it up to the school there, we made it up to the school.

There was 14 of us.

I'm watching them advance because I want to know when they get there.

and I didn't know it was Kevin Dallaire, but I see him fall, and I thought, he tripped or he said stumbled or whatever.

And then all of a sudden there's all this activity and there's people dragging him into the cover of the two outhouses that that were on the friendly side of the actual school itself.

Once we got there, we kind of reorganized ourselves, and I quickly realized that I'm gonna need some support, some Canadian support to be able to carry on.

He got into an outbuilding of the school, could have got to the school.

But it became pretty obvious to me within the next 20 minutes, There is no Taliban commander in that school, that area is in fact a perfect kill zone.

I was on the radio, and then all of a sudden, the round hits.

One of the projectiles actually struck the wall and threw me across the room.

My ears are ring ringing, I can't see.

It felt like time was slowing down.

This is crazy.

We got to get them out of there.

I was terrified.

There was this humongous volume of fire coming down on us because we had stopped shooting.

And we sprinted up to where I thought they were on the objective.

I can remember the radio being blown away from me.

I picked it up, I heard a squelch, and I just said, get thoses up here, or we're gonna f_____ die.

Obviously, there was a number of guys dead, and there was an even greater number of guys that were wounded.

I remember seeing Vaughan Ingram.

He was hit, but still trying to look after his men.

He was still trying to do first aid on guys and eventually I saw him just kind of put his head down, the things that go through your head, Illogically I thought he was just taking a rest.

Tony Perry and Matt Parsons got tired of waiting for authorization to come help, so one of them got on the radio and called Niner, Colonel Hope and said.

we're going to go up there and help these guys.

And Colonel Hope just came back on the radio and said, "good luck."

Like, everyone heard this.

Like, even when you talk to the guys.

They heard that on the radio that, you know, if you don't come get us now, we're all going to die.

And right away, my gunner and my driver knew what we were doing.

So my driver started rolling forward.

I got on the radio and told Colonel Hope, you know.

I just I think the exact wordsI used, I could still remember.

It was like, Niner, this is 33 Bravo.

I'm going up, I'm going up.

We have to ask LAV's to go in on a road where they've already lost two LAV's full of IEDs, I'm sure to try and extract what we have left in that forward group I must say, though, the two LAV drivers, there Tony Perry, Matt Parsons or Kiwi.

The courage they showed to drive up through an IED infested road that was found out later on, there was another 11 IEDs and a very short thing.

How they made it up there and back without kidding one of them, I don't know.

In the process of coming up and waiting for us to load everybody up, they actually fired almost every single bullet that they had.

There was that much volume of fire coming again, because the enemies realized that, oh, my God, they're going to get out of there and we don't want them to get out of there.

It was like the guys in the LAVs were reading our minds because they started they knew that we needed the LAVs up there, and I tell you to listening to those 25mm canons was you know the best thing I ever heard.

So they came up and then we evacuated or pulled off of the objective.

Um, but I remember getting back,Colonel Hope handled me a bottle of the water and said, I'm sorry it's not cold.

But anyways, I went back to the extract traction point.

We were going to be lifted out of there on a Black Hawk, and I knew we were flying west instead of southeast back to the Kandahar airfield, and we were actually flying right over where we just left.

And I can remember rounds hitting the side of the Black Hawk.

You know, my biggest time thought was for all these troops, because, you know we're gonna do this Ramp Ceremony and they've seen, you know ,there was four members of our platoon were just killed.

There's a number of them wounded, you know, a couple quite seriously injured.

My thoughts were with the platoon and really keeping them together, and that meant for everyone to push it all down.

And, you know, you can deal with that one day, but that day can't be today and it can't be tomorrow.

You know, right now, the focus is the mission.

Shaun Peterson got nailed in an IED.

I went to visit him as I was organizing the Ramp Ceremony for 3 August.

I then approached Shaun as he's lying in his bed.

and I said,Youre going to be all right?"

So here's a man that was launched in a IED lying in bed and less than 24 hours later, he was marching down that targetarmac, leading his fallen comrades.

So, Andrew James Eykelenboom was born November the 3rd, 1982.

He was the youngest of three sons.

He loved the Comox Valley.

He loved the outdoors.

He loved everything there was to do about it.

He didn't have anything that would pull in him into a military.

What pulled him into the military was his desire to be a firefighter/ paramedic.

Andrew was almost 6'2".

He was very fit, very strong.

And he said, "That's what I'm going to do.

I want to be a firefighter."

And then in grade 12, he did a work experience on the base in court Comox with the firefighters.

So he did that work experience and he came home and he said, These guys tell me I should really join the military."

And I'd said, "No, you're not joining the military."

Anyway, he said, "No, Mom, I'm serious."

And he was quite adamant.

He was now 18, and no, this is what I'm going to do.

So he was went on the base and he signed up and did his aptitude testing and they said, You're testing really high in the medical, and would you sign up as a medic?

So now it is September.

He is in Edmonton, and 9/11 happens.

I pick up the phone that night.

And I said, "Andrew, the military is going to send you to war.

You need to get out of this.

I don't know what I have to do but I'm going to get you out."

And he said, "No, you're not.

I will be needed more than ever."

End of story.

I'm not proud as a Canadian that I tried to talk him out of it, but I'm a mom first.

And I couldn't.

And I got up in the morning and I love driving through the mountains on a sunny summer day by myself Tunes turned on.

I can just sing, I can.

I just love it.

There's something I don't know.

Inspirational, it's heavenly.

And at 9 o'clock in the morning the news announces that another Canadian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, and I picked up my cell phone and no one had tried to phone me.

So therefore, it was not my son and I just prayed for that family.

I pulled into the ferry parking lot at 8:30 and just sat there and went, oh, and my husband came walking across the parking lot.

I had left him in Penticton.

He was going to stay and go fishing with his brother.

To this day, he does not talk about that day.

And he gets into my car and I just beat on him and I said, "You tell me Andrew's going to Germany” cause we didn't hear what happened to the injured.

And you tell me, and he just said, "I can't."

And it was The nightmare began.

And I looked at the water.

and I had the thought, if I jump over the edge right now, I will be with Andy, and this will be gone.

It's a really unfortunate incidentident on the road between Kandahar Airfield and Spin Boldak, it's main road where, probably the lightest vehicle from the convoy is hit by a vehicle borne IED strike.

And the G-Wagon catches fire immediately.

A suicide bomber, understand from Syriaria, about 17 years old, drove into the G-Wagon.

The two in the front are still conscious and able to get themselves out.

But the medic Eykelenboom in the back is unconscious and caught in the flames, but nobody can get at him.

I have to believe Andrew was killed on the impact, or he would have gotten himself out.

You have to understand a medic is revered amongst the combat infantry.

And to lose your medic that way is traumatizing.

Now, we had a philosophy of making sure that our wounded and dead were evacuated.

That wasn't somebody else's responsibility, that's our responsibility.

To guarantee it, because we're not leaving anybody behind.

In this case, the evacuation of Boomer from the vehicle would have have had to be done by his friends.

So I made the decision and passed it on by orders that get everybody back from the vehicle, wait till it burns out, put it in a tarpaulin or a big wrap, put it on a low bed and bring it back.

We have a mortuary affairs organization that's American that deal with a kind of thing.

So, you know, what we did is we adopted security and waited for the firefighters and the EOD guys to get the vehicle in the state where it could be handled We loaded up the the vehicle got.

load bedded, and then it was time to go back And I remember, you know, as we were driving through the base and there's not really too many people about because it's super early in the morning but it's just getting light.

The headquarters Sergeant Major was out for a run.

And, you know, he obviously knew what was going on because he came to a halt in the road and he just did attention while our vehicle drove by.

And then, we got to Mortuary Affairs, and they had a rough terrain forklift to unload this vehicle, and they took it off.

And Colonel Hope was there.

Colonel Hope actually.

He went over to look at the G- Wagon.

And then he opened the rear door and he got inside the G-Wagon.

And he just sat there for a while.

It was almost like he was communing with Eykelenboom's spirit.

And I'm glad we did, because as I was doing it, something told me that in the future, if I ever meet his parents, at least I can say, I don't know the good or bad, of the mission I don't know the right or wrong of the mission, but I know that he was extracted by someone who cared.

And that's pretty important, not a stranger.

And it's part of command responsibility.

Now, do you do it every day?

No, but you don't pass to your subordin.

It's something that you're not willing to do yourself and you don't pass the risk of trauma to them.

Personally, I think Ian found himself in a situation that was beyond what he imagined.

I took Mike Wright, Colonel Mike Wright and said "OK I'm not in command yet and I can't give orders But I take command about 1600 on the 19th, so I at 1601, you're going to seize the high ground on a mountain called Masum Ghar.

I think we happen to arrive just before there was a large scale Taliban attack planned against the Panjwayi District Center.

As we started getting more about the enemy, and we started running low on ammunition, General Lavoie asked me about withdrawing.

One of the first things things thought is, on the very first day that the RCR have taken over Kandahar Province, there's no way in hell that the Patricia Company is going to withdraw.

The plan was to attack across the Arghandab River from Masum Ghar in into the area of the White School, which was Charles Company's objective for OP Medusa day one So the plan was to attack that on the 4th.

The White School was just simply in an area that was called objective Rugby, which was a NATO assigned.

one of my four NATO assigned objectives that I had to take, and probably would have been my last objective to have taken in my plan, but if it wasn' weren't for this premature change in orders Even in basic training, in battle school, you're told, you'll never do a frontal because it's it's easy to defend against, it's easy to predict, and yet there we were conducting a frontal assault.

So on September 2nd, we were actually just behind where Charles Company was, and in a relativelyclose proximity.

And we said that we had eyes on, and then we saw the aircraft hit and the explosion occur.

We buckled up and took off in our G-Wagons.

And the concern was like survivors and the Taliban seizing parts of the aircraft for war trophies, or, sadly, those that had fallen in the aircraft.

It was a 2nd of September a British surveillance aircraft went down to the north end of Panjwayi It was doing air to air refueling.

It was design flaw so when it disengaged, it caught fired and crashed.

And we actually saw the plane go down, and we see this plane crash on fire coming down So we responded to that crash site.

We secured that crash site.

We had the GWagons and the RG 31.

So the G-Wagons were able to get to the crash site.

OP Medusa was kicking off that day.

Being told that a UK Nimrod, which is a command control surveillance aircraft had just crashed behind any lines in my area, and I needed to send in a sub unit to fight to get the remains, all 14 were killed.

So it was going on all at the same time.

You know, if you think you're having a bad day in training, you worst day in training doesn't compete with your best day in combat when guys are trying to kill you and you're loosing soldiers We had artillery slamming the position across the river where the Taliban were.

We had armoured vehicles firing across.

We had helicopters coming in, we had fast air dropping bombs, pretty well all day on the 2nd up into the night of the 2nd.

Again, we're going to conduct this attack in what is expected to be a fortified, occupied position, and the orders are very vague.

So perhaps the expectation was that the aerial bombardment would neutralize the opposition, and it would just be a walk in the park for everybody else.

So we were on that high ground with our LAVs, cannon, two and a half kilometer reach of a 25mm.

So we completely dominated everything within that area, including the white school which was 1200 meters if I correctly ended up end up firing on it with my LAV, about 1200 meters from our battle positions.

And then late in the evening of the 2nd, the OC, Major Spragg, my OC, received a quick set of orders from the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Omer Lavoie, that he wanted.

He'd been ordered for us to take a platoon and cross the Arghandab River and roll along the north side of the river to to see if we would receive any contact.

We were a little weary of doing it, but we follow orders.

While we were the firebase.

So original orders where we're going to go in and the the whole company plus including the RCD's, we're going to act as a fire base and we're going to suppress with fire, and then we're going to do our RECCE's.

And they say to me, "Well, chances are you're going to go across, we're going to give you an engineer, Well, it was interesting, though, when we first rolled in the orders were to go in and start shooting, because there was only enemy left.

When we all rolled in, there was a pause.

There was just silence, and then the commander got on and said,"What are you waiting for?

Let's go."

It was just.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, nobody, it was kind of like this last... I Are we like, are we sure about this?

Because, you know, we saw people there we thought were enemy, but they're like, yeah, let's go So then the fireworks started, and that was pretty wild.

There was a lot of air being called in.

So the air, the sky was filled, it was... I mean, to the point where if you were going to just fire a mortar, you had to clear it, because there was so many things going on the air.

There was artillery coming in.

It was very busy.

And we We're run soften and position up.

We're going to do our own reconnaissanceance and then.

And so when I was doing my reconnaissance, they were like,"Nope, we gotta go now."

And there wasn't even radio orders.

It was that fast.

I was just listening to the radio.

And so I was like, "OK, adjust we're going to be able to be the fire base, you know, let's, you know, try to keep them in our arcs, where are they, like, so we can.. And then I'll hell broke loose.

The attack, you know, went to pieces right away.

And from what I understand, even after the vehicles hit were hit initially in the ambush, there was still one of the LAVs, which actually made it all the way up to the school and drove around But they were by themselves.

So of course, they came back, you know, so, like I said, it was confusing.

And so from where we were in the ditch, when I looked over to my right you know, I could see the guys who were in the LAVs that had been disabled.

You could see them come running back.

And then our platoon Warrant, my platoon Warrant Frank Mellish, he came running back too.

because one one of the guys killed in the G-Wagon was one of his closest friends, Rick Nolan.

And so Frank comes running back and I look over and he throws his helmet down, and he's like, f___, f___, f___!

And he throws his helmet down, and he picks up his helmet and he goes, I want some payback.

He slams his helmet down on his head, and he goes back to our platoon, heading back to where our platoon headquarters element was.

And then that's, and that was by the Zettelmeyer, and then that's when the Zettelmeyer was hit by a recoilles rifle.

And so when Frank was killed at that point and some other people.

And yeah, and so that Zedelmier wasn't far behind us.

In fact, the force of that impact knocked over the four of us who were at the C6.

So I remember one of the guys on the C6, Jordan Lobb, he keeps looking back, and he's like,f___, f___, f___, and I hit him on the helmet, right?

And I'm like, "You want to help them, you watch your arcs.

So we got to get that C6 rocking,'cause we gotta suppress the enemy so that we can get the wounded out, 'cause things had completely completely gone pear shaped by that time.

At about 0400.

I was on the battle position with Charles Company, and at that second, heard a loud of explosion just to the left of my LAV.

We could hear it.

And then I heard one and went.

That sounde really, really close.

And I knew it was an A-10.

On hearing that, poking my hea up, and then vivid to this day.

Right away, you knew something happened.

I heard the A-10, and you coul hear the rounds hit the ground first... and you hear the gunfire.

So I saw all the sparks and everything flying, and I'm like... "Oh, someone just got lit up."

37 soldiers literally flying like dominoes, as they' been hit with the 30mm cannon.

Omer Lavoie, the battalion commander, actually, saying, we've just been strafe by an A-10 prepare for mass cas Wow.

The CO just came on the net to say that.

Now, we were back into chaos in this time, very significant chaos.

Now, in those few moments that that time that passes, now all the units around us are all the units around us are flooding, flooding.

It's okay.

I'll never forget that scene.

There were so many wounded and so many people... people in there taking care of that.

And it was around that time.

A friend of mine, Donnie Crawford, who comes up to me to check me out, and he bandaged my leg, and then I asked him to check my back, and he saw there was a shrapnel wound there or two, so he bandaged me up.

And then you know, then they start gathering people together, getting the wounded in order.

Now, you know, the medics are there taking charge.

There was a female medic, took some of my information and she was I remember she was writing it on my forehead, you know?

And so.

So yeah, people are gathered together.

And a buddy mine, Jeff Price comes over, and I was just like, Jeff, did we lose anybody?

You know?

And he just gave me the old.

you know?

So.

But that was Mark Graham, who was killed, who was a really was a great guy, Mark.

And Well, yeah, Mark was killed.

He was standing right by the fire, I guess.

Another guy with another guy, Brock Viggon, who was standing at the fire, and Brock was full of holes.

He got hit quite a bit.

And I guess ironically, Mark, from what I understand, only had one impact, and it just got him right in the heart.

And so one soldier killed a couple of dozen very seriously, wounded another dozen on top of that, wounded, but not life threatening, so now we had a mass casualty situation on our hands while still in contact with the enemy.

After just experiencing a blue on blue with this air strike.

I gathered it was mostly Charles Company, but also a troop of engineers and others who were on the battle position with us and you know, as much as possible.

It sort of gave the same, sadly the same speech, I ended up giving too many times in the back of a Herc at ramp ceremonies, They were killed following my orders.

and I could stop that I could stop casualties as the CO anytime I wanted to.

My point was I could do that, but that's not what we're sent here to do, and I will continue to bring the fight to the enemy.

And I felt that if I did that, then those soldiers that we'd lost and the wounded, would truly have been lost in.

vain, if we just stop the fight after we'd taken our first casualties.

so now I was up to seven, and we're only in day one of Medusa.

Yeah, but the soldiers, I mean, one of the greatest sources of pride, you know, these troops always told me, sir, when we lose a buddy, it just strengthens our resolve to keep fighting.

And that certainly strengthened my resolve.

When you take a look at what happened in those five days in early September in 2006, like they had their metal tested, and they demonstrated the kind of physical bravery that the Canadian soldier is renowned for.

And frankly, that I think surprised some other nations that we worked with, that and that they are anybody, in the battle group, or frankly,in the country, should be proud of.

Like, what they endured, what they accomplished, I know certainly as a Canadian, I was incredibly proud of what they did.

Despite the fact that, you know I was in like higher Headquarters that they, frankly were pissed off at, and probably had good reason to be pissed off at In a fight like that, you don't see the regimental cap badge, you just see the job that's got to get done.

So it doesn't matter if you're a Patricia or a Dragoon or a Royal, you just know that work's got got to get done, and you all have to pull together.

So my brother was the 108th Canadian to die in Afghanistan, and I remember thinking like watching watching it on TV and thinking like, 107 times this happened and I didn't know one person.

And the 108th time it happened, it was my little brother.

How How is this even happening?

By that time, we knew that they were sending my brother home that day.

So the ramp ceremony was going to be that night.

So again, TV's on all day, on the news, watching.

They were still talking about the incident on the news, and then we were just waiting for the ramp ceremony.

And I remember sitting there having lunch when somebody came over to the general, whispered something in his ear, his facialexpression changed, and then he wandered off, and he looked at Alan and mine, and he said, "We've just lost another one."

And I just kept thinking about the domino effect of what's about to happen You know, We're on the front edge of knowing something.

There's a tsunami about to hit family in Canada that's on the way to them, you know?

And I remember that, like, oh, wow, the repercussions, how that will trickle through you know, and then it'll become a news item and then we'll find out who it is.

And I that was changed the tone of the trip for sure.

We watched the hockey game that night because Don Cherry always paid tribute to fallen soldiers in Afghanistan, and I remember seeing Don Cherry talking about him and showing his picture.

And at the end, he was like, another beautiful young boy.

And I thought, wow.

I just couldn't believe it.

I remember vividly how humble they felt and how honored they were to be there, meeting these soldiers.

I mean, it was role reversal.

Many of these young men and women were in awe of the fact that they were meeting these hockey heroes, and yet, in some cases, they were almost overcome with emotion, just the pride of being there and seeing what was happening on behalf of our country.

The real heroes in Canada don't wear hockey uniforms.

They wear khaki.

They wear blue.

The real heroes in Canada don't wear hockey uniforms.

They wear military uniforms.

We were going to say thank you to them for what they do on a daily basis.

There was one concert in the big base at KAF and we'd lost three of them, and we were going to a a ramp ceremony for three of them.

And our natural reaction was to say to General Natynczykk, is that it?

is the concert off and he said he said "no, on the contrary, now they need it more than ever".

And I remember we did our show and then we dedicated, "Don't forget me when I'm gone".

I gave a little speech, something just off the cuff to sort of say, we're here to celebrate the lives of these young men and we're here as brothers and Canadians and all the things that came to mind.

And don't forget me when I'm going never sounded more poignant and brilliant.

There is about, I'm going to guess, 5,000 soldiers, men and women from every different country when Glass Tiger performed.

We have a 5,000 soldier, sailors, airmen, women, in the stands before that concert.

And they needed to know that Canada cared.

Don't forget me when I'm gone my heart would break I have loved you for so long It's all I can take oh, yeah You know all the words and all the troops are singing.

Yes.

Yeah, it was absolutely fantastic.

He finds me everywhere Oh... You don't care Don't forget me when I'm gone My heart will break I have loved you for so long Oh, it's love alone Don't forget me, when when I'm gone Oh my heart will break I have have loved you for so long And because they do that ramp ceremony late at night it was fitting to have Glass Tiger playing the way they did, and then the final song, and then head over.

And then you realize, okay, fun's over... now we need to move on and honour.

And then all of us went out to that ramp.

and paid our respects.

I should know the number.

It was close to 90 repatriations during my time at DND.

Those were those were the hardest moments, by far, being with the families and that immediate reality that hit when the families were on the tarmac and that coffin came off the plane, very jarring experience for the families.

I remember watching the door open on the airplane, and that flag draped box just rolling out onto the thing, and I remember thinking like, my brother's in there.

I've seen it happen on TV so many times.

How is my brother in that box?

I just you just keep waiting every step of the way.

Someone's going to tell me that this is not this is not actually happening.

But they never do.

Greg Hudson, who was his escort home, we walked over to it and I don't remember doing this, but someone told me, that I climbed in the back to put my flower on the box.

They're like, "We thought you were just gonna get inside and not come out".

I said, "I probably want to".

I don't know.

We would meet with the families as well at those repat ceremonies to express profound gratitude and to at least attempt to provide support, compassion.

I was angry.

I was very angry You know, I lost my son.

I had no.

Let's say I was angry at everyone and everything at the time.

That was my emotion with speaking at the time.

because it was a friendly fire.

I blamed the American pilot at that time.

and I thought about it and I think about it and how he felt.

I asked once if there was a possibility to say hi to him, just to even on the phone to say, okay, I don't blame you.

You know?

But I was told that he was not allowed to speak to me.

There wouldn't be any discussion between him and me.

And I thought, okay, I'm sure he's that completely happy about the situation because he you know, it was a mistake and he.

I'm sure he's that happy about it.

And after a while, I did not blame him.

I just thought things happen.

I mean, I have many, many memories that I have stored from those experiences, but one in particular that stayed with me and reminded me again of the just incredible depth of commitment that it takes to serve.

And this particular young man was from Ontario.

I had met on a previous visit to Afghanistan and and I remember him because he had such a big personality.

I mean, in a group of several hundred soldiers, he stood out, he had a huge smile, he was very engaged, very confident, just so vibrant, full of life.

And you know, I learned later about some of his activities in the community.

He was from Lebanon.

And he His father said to me, and there's always this sense that you want to be respectful of them and their grief and not to impose yourself and also a feeling of perhaps they're going to be angry, rightly so.

And so you sometimes brace yourself a little bit for that reaction.

But this father came to me and said, you know, my son, when we arrived in Canada, couldn't wait till he was of age to join and he was in cadets.

And the day he turned 18, he was eligible, he signed up.

And he said, because back in, in Lebanon, he would not have been able to sign.

He was an only son.

And if you have one son So he was very excited.

And in telling me this story, you know, it had a profound impact on me.

And then he said, you know, and he said, I'm so honored that you and the chief and Defense staff are here, and he said, "If I had another son, I'd give them to you."

Boy, that registered, you know, how patriotic that he felt, how committed he was as a Canadian and I think, because his son had gone back to a region that they had left.

I just, I was somewhat overwhelmed as I still feel today.

Yeah.

I get started with a few people that you could get on the fence line and you were outside, but you recognized what was going on.

It was very quiet.

You know, people wer reverenced in the sense of how it happened.

So I think that's what started.

Everybody was there to support the families and be there, but it also became there to support each other.

And I think you really felt that along that fence line.

And particularly, when the procession left, the wing went through the gate and went down number two highway, which is going through the base.

And and would line up along the road, both sides.

And, you know, it was a very emotional, you know.

We were just there to give our support to show we were concerned and we cared.

And I think that grew as it went along on each one, and you know,it was very emotional.

We got on the highway, and I had seen you know, you see the videos on TV or the news clips of everybody traveling down the highway of heroes, and you see the overpasses lined with people and you see the sides of the roadsl lined with people But to actually drive down that highway.. You know how to go out there, whether it was a nice day like today or the dead of winter whenever it was sleet or snow.

and to see all of those Canadians stand there.

People were standing outside their cars.

They had their hats off, and they were, you know, kind of their hand on their heart as we were driving past, it was It was amazing.

It was amazing.

Every overpass you drove over were just faces of people and they were waving flags and like, saluting, or they had signs.

And not once complain about the weather.

Not once complain about anything but you show their respect for what those men and women did.

spoke volumes about Canadians.

Cobourg Fire will be there.

I wish you could tell all the people that did that, how much it meant that they were there.

just watching your person drive by.

And the 162 men and women who were killed in Afghanistan, there was always somebody on that bridge, taking care of them.

I watched my nation change.

I saw Canada come together as a nation.