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Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

 

‘Hours of boredom and seconds of terror'

Jane Armstrong, Globe & Mail, 6 Oct 06

 

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — On matters of war, Major Andrew Lussier has read everything he can get his hands on.

 

He knows all about the grinding boredom of waiting and watching for an unseen enemy. And he knows this brand of boredom is alleviated only by short bursts of terror.

 

It turned out, Maj. Lussier's combat research was spot on Tuesday afternoon when his unit — which had the otherwise mundane task of guarding a road-building crew — was hit with a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire from Taliban insurgents as the late afternoon sun sank in the Afghanistan sky.

 

The ambush lasted less than 30 seconds. When the explosions and gunfire stopped, two Canadians soldiers — Corporal Robert Thomas James Mitchell, 32, and Sergeant Craig Paul Gillam, 40 — were dead. Eight others, including two U.S. soldiers, were injured.

 

“I prepared myself for this,” said the grim-faced squadron commander, head of a surveillance unit of the Royal Canadian Dragoons. Maj. Lussier talked to reporters Thursday moments after the flag-draped coffins of the two slain soldiers were carried up the ramp of a Hercules aircraft at the Kandahar Airfield, the second ramp ceremony in five days.

 

“You always hear about hours of boredom and seconds of terror,” Maj. Lussier said. “Well, I can confirm that. That's actually very accurate. That's what the fighting is like out there.”

 

At least two of soldiers wept openly as they carried the coffins from the tarmac to the aircraft in the bright morning sunlight.

 

Afterward, Maj. Lussier spoke warmly of both men, singling out Sgt. Gillam's efforts to warn his fellow soldiers of the attack while he alone opened fire on the Taliban fighters.

 

“His actions, I'm certain, were able to save the patrol,” Maj. Lussier said.

 

Back home in Canada, relatives of Sgt. Gillam, a married father of two teenagers, have said the soldier was apprehensive about his tour in Afghanistan.

 

His aunt in his native Newfoundland said he had asked her to pray for him.

 

Maj. Lussier's unit was protecting a crew of army engineers, which was punching through a north-south road in the Pashmul area, a cluster of villages in the treacherous Panjwai region.

 

Currently, there is only a narrow, dirt road wending though the area's farms and vineyards, which provide ample cover for Taliban fighters.

 

The work crews — and their respective surveillance units — were planted in three groups along a two-kilometre stretch of road, about 25 kilometres west of Kandahar city. Maj. Lussier was in the second group.

 

He said Tuesday's twilight attack came out of nowhere; his men didn't see the fighters until the explosives landed at the first observation post, where Sgt. Gillam was positioned.

 

Within seconds of the attack, the soldier was screaming warnings to his fellow men.

 

He was the only soldier in the first observation post who had time to return fire.

 

“Sgt. Gillam saw them and started to open fire and that pre-empted the attack,” Maj. Lussier said. “And that's what allowed the rest of the soldiers to scramble and get into the right position.”

 

The attack was over in less than a minute, the major said, but it was well planned, with Taliban fighters strafing each observation post with machine-gun fire after launching grenades.

 

The deaths are a bitter reminder that Taliban insurgents are still a dangerous threat in southern Afghanistan — especially in the turbulent Panjwai district — despite a massive Canadian offensive that forced a Taliban retreat and left hundreds of insurgents dead.

 

But Taliban fighters have not abandoned the area. The day after the fatal attack, insurgents planted a mine on the same road that exploded under an armoured vehicle, injuring two soldiers.

 

The fatal road attack came four days after another soldier, Private Josh Klukie, was killed in a mine explosion in the same region.

 

The assaults on Canadian soldiers are a dismaying development for commanders, who just last month declared that they had Taliban fighters on the run.

 

The military says the recent ambushes have all the hallmarks of guerrilla warfare, which suggests the number of insurgents might be small.

 

“They're responding like caged animals,” said Colonel Fred Lewis, deputy commander of the Canadian task force in Afghanistan. “What we saw Oct. 3 was a guerrilla ambush.”

 

Col. Lewis vowed that Canadian troops will persevere in the region, holding meetings with local elders to win their trust.

 

Eventually, the goal is to establish local, indigenous auxiliary police detachments to secure the region.

 

Sgt. Gillam and Cpl. Mitchell were the 38th and 39th Canadian soldiers to die in Afghanistan.

 

Sgt. Gillam was about a month away from a visit home to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, his relatives said.

 

Maj. Lussier said Sgt. Gillam was “a stand-up guy. He'd give the shirt off his back for other soldiers.”

 

Cpl. Mitchell, a married father of three young children, was a fitness buff who competed in Iron Man events, Maj. Lussier said.

 

The surveillance unit was back at work Thursday on the Panjwai road.

 

“The two boys who sit on the airplane, they expect us to get on with it,” Maj. Lussier said. “And that's what I told my soldiers.”


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