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3. Defence, Diplomacy, Development (2003–2006) · The Long War: Canada in Afghanistan

• ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: [Music begins]. I’m Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Long War: Canada in Afghanistan. In 2003, the Bush administration pressed its allies to join the invasion of Iraq. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien refused to send Canadian troops there without a UN mandate. Meanwhile, NATO was preparing to take over ISAF — the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. They needed troops. Canada said “yes” to that. August 2003, soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment arrived with Company Commander Tom Mykytiuk. [Music ends]. TOM MYKYTIUK: The C-130 flies in and makes a very steep, steep dive to protect the aircraft from any air defence missiles or any stingers or anything that could threaten it. You’re flying in and then suddenly you have this sharp climb and then, you know, you’re coming into Kabul. Once you get off the airplane, essentially, you can smell that enduring scent and taste of dust. You know, dust in your cup, dust on your skin, dust in your teeth. ANDREW BURTCH: When the Canadians have arrived, it is the seat of power, so there is, that is where the presidency and the main focus of Afghan government is located. TREMONTI: Andrew Burtch, the Post-1945 Historian at the Canadian War Museum, is our guide this season. He’s talking about the new reality in Kabul. BURTCH: It’s a very different security environment in Kabul than Kandahar. It’s an urban landscape but still very much in rubble. TREMONTI: The city of Kabul was swelling with refugees coming back from Pakistan and Iran. They were drawn by the fall of the Taliban, and by the prospect that things would be different. The Canadian base, Camp Julien, sat on the city’s outskirts. Shannon Glenney was an Administration and Special Events Coordinator with the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency. She arrived in the summer of 2004 and was struck by the location of the camp. SHANNON GLENNEY: Camp Julien was a camp located in the southwest corner of Kabul between the wrecks of two beautiful buildings — the King’s Palace and the Queen’s Palace — which you’ll see in any photo of Kabul. So we were in the spot between the two palaces with mountains all around. It was an extraordinarily beautiful setting. TREMONTI: For soldiers and staff at Camp Julien, contact with local Afghans was limited. But every other Monday, a market would set up right outside the front gate. It was controlled, but it gave soldiers a glimpse of the world beyond the wire. GLENNEY: I had one particular family. The dad and the youngest son sold textiles, like pashmina scarves and stuff. And then the older son, who must have been about 15, had a little booth where he sold metal vases and toys and stuff, and then black-market DVDs. So, I always made sure I saved a couple of dollars to go to their stall, even though I didn’t need anything. I liked seeing them. And you know, they very much remember their customers and stuff, too. So we’d walk around and see the local population that way. TREMONTI: But beneath the routines — the markets, the patrols, and the relative calm — there were constant reminders that Kabul was not a safe place. GLENNEY: We had to carry our flak jackets with the ballistic plates and helmets to work every day. If we were off camp, for example, even to go to the market, we had to wear our flak vests with plates. TREMONTI: Inside Camp Julien, the accommodations were very basic. Sarah Heer was a Captain with the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. She deployed to Kabul in 2003. SARAH HEER: Well, I was stationed at Camp Julien for the majority of the time. Camp Julien, like I said before, when we got there, was pretty, it wasn’t really set up. It was just mod tents. So pretty much that’s a tarp covered tent with no flooring. We had cots and we had bug nets, which were definitely a necessity there with the bugs that were crawling around. TREMONTI: The intelligence reports came in daily: threats and warnings of possible attacks. HEER: Kabul was a pretty intense area. We received daily “int reps” on different insurgents and different threats that we had to look out for. So, you know, you always had to be careful. We heard everything from possible pen bombs to people making bombs in crockpots. So, we were always prepared and you always had to be alert. And it was when you felt you relaxed that you’re always worried something could occur. So I think my personal security, every time I left the camp, I was very, I tried to keep my senses looking and keep my eyes open for anything that could be seen as suspicious. TREMONTI: That tension — staying alert while also trying to appear open and approachable — defined the early Kabul mission. From Camp Julien, soldiers ventured into downtown Kabul and the surrounding countryside, and their approach looked more like past peacekeeping deployments in Bosnia than the war they’d just been fighting in Kandahar. BURTCH There was definitely lots of targeted interactions where they sit down for chai and speak with elders, speak with people with various concerns. L[SM1.1]ong hours and meetings with tea and sharing meals. TREMONTI: Company Commander Tom Mykytiuk spent his days doing exactly that — walking through bazaars, checking in with local business owners, and listening for signs of trouble. MYKYTIUK: Where we had a lot of contact with people was during the day when we would do patrols through some of the bazaars and stop in some of the local industries. Like, there was a group that were making the Afghan rugs. So we’d stop in, talk to the manager of the building or the little enterprise. “How are things going? Any concerns? Anything that you’re aware of, any threats, anything that you want to bring to our attention?” TREMONTI Master Corporal Paul Franklin was a medic with 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He deployed to Kabul as part of an Embedded Training Team, living alongside Afghan soldiers in the mountains outside Paghman, west of Kabul. PAUL FRANKLIN: As a medic, I was able to hang out with other Afghan National soldiers who were medics. And so, I would help teach them how to do pressure bandages or tourniquets. And their positions would get shot at at night, and you’d hear over the radio that their medics were doing a good job. And when you’re standing on top of a mountain and you look down into the valley and you can see the ambulance going to the site, picking up people and then coming back — yeah, it was a very nice feeling. And I was very proud of myself. TREMONTI: It was work that felt purposeful. Optimistic, even. There was a sense that Afghanistan was turning a corner. Then came October 2, 2003. The Jowz Valley, southwest of Kabul. A Canadian patrol ventured out from Camp Julien. Six soldiers in two Iltis jeeps, headed into the hills on what was a routine patrol. The Iltis was what the military calls a “soft-skinned” vehicle and was open on the sides. Because it wasn’t designed to withstand mines or ambushes or even active battle, it had no armour plating. BURTCH: There were a couple of different arguments in favour of the Iltis versus a heavier vehicle. One, its ready availability and speed, especially in Kabul, which is an urban environment. There are a lot of side streets, a lot of avenues that a larger armoured vehicle could not navigate. So, it creates a bit more of a restriction on your movement. TREMONTI: That day, the patrol followed a sandy path through the valley, located close to Camp Julien. Hidden on the track was a TM-57 anti-tank mine about the size of a dinner plate. It triggered, detonating around seven kilograms of TNT. Two soldiers were killed instantly: Sergeant Robert Short, a 42-year-old master sniper from New Brunswick, and Corporal Robbie Beerenfenger, 29, from Ottawa. Three others were wounded. BURTCH: That was a very tragic event that led to morale drop among the Canadians who were there. And perhaps a bit of a wake-up call to some who had been there who may have interpreted it as a bit more in the Bosnia years, where things had been relatively stable and there were fewer risks. TREMONTI: Questions immediately followed. “Were the Iltis vehicles adequate? Should soldiers be patrolling in unarmoured jeeps in what was still clearly a war zone?” [Music begins]. A two-tonne boulder was taken from the site where the mine exploded. It became the centerpiece of a memorial at Camp Julien — a stark reminder of what this mission was costing. The Canadians adjusted. They became more vigilant. They eventually replaced the Iltis with armoured vehicles. But the mission continued. Because there was work to be done, and a country to rebuild. In D[SM2.1][SM2.2][SM2.3]ecember 2003, just weeks after the mine strike, Afghan leaders gathered in Kabul for a Loya Jirga — a grand council — to begin drafting a new constitution. It was a moment the international community had been working toward since the fall of the Taliban two years earlier. [Music ends]. BURTCH: So, the Loya Jurga is an important milestone in that post-2001 landscape, or political landscape, in Afghanistan that was deemed to be a necessary step in creating a legitimate government in Afghanistan. TREMONTI: The Loya Jirga brought together more than 500 delegates including warlords and former Northern Alliance commanders — men who commanded militias and controlled territory across Afghanistan. Figures such as Rashid Dostum, violent men from Afghanistan’s civil war, now dressed in suits. The international community watched: Canadians, Americans, UN observers. But one group was intentionally excluded. BURTCH: One group that was definitely not involved in the Loya Jirga were the Taliban who were, you know, at this point re-forming in southern Afghanistan and in neighbouring Pakistan. TREMONTI: The Taliban remained a threat, launching targeted attacks to disrupt the proceedings. Major Tom Mykytiuk’s company provided security around the talks. MYKYTIUK: Elements of my company were tasked to provide an outer cordon around where the constitutional talks were being held. And they were working with the local police. And there was an IED that’d go off. None of my troops were hurt, but there was some threats and some intimidation to, I guess, disrupt the process to an extent. TREMONTI: The constitution, ratified in January 2004, promised rights that Afghans hadn’t seen in a generation: Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, equal rights for women — at least in writing. But in spite of the progress, the threats escalated. January 27, 2004 — nearly four months after the mine strike, nine months before the presidential election — the Taliban introduced a new tactic. A Canadian patrol left Camp Julien, heading into the city. They slowed down to pass through a small ditch. A man approached the vehicle and detonated a bomb he was wearing, instantly killing 26-year-old Corporal Jamie Murphy. Three other Canadians were injured. Corporal Murphy had been days away from going home. BURTCH: The 27 of January 2004 was an important date for the Canadian military involvement in Afghanistan because it was the first time that Canadians had been targeted by a suicide attack. These were relatively rare in previous Afghan engagements. It wasn’t something that was widely seen during the war with the Soviets for example. It was more of a war fought by ambush and improvised explosive devices, and less so by suicide tactics. TREMONTI: A board of inquiry investigated the attack. In their report, a chilling phrase emerged: “The ultimate smart weapon.” A human being — radicalized, expendable — capable of walking up to any vehicle, any checkpoint, and detonating, causing maximum damage. It was a tactic used in Iraq, now spreading to Afghanistan. [Music begins]. At Kabul airfield, soldiers gathered on the tarmac as Corporal Murphy’s flag-draped casket was loaded onto a cargo plane. The ramp ceremonies would become a solemn and tragically frequent ritual in the years ahead. After the suicide bombing, some wondered if Canada would pull back. Close the gates. Armour up. Stop drinking tea in Afghan homes. [Music ends]. But that didn’t happen. BURTCH: I don’t believe that Canadians changed their approach to Afghans in the immediate aftermath of the bombing that killed Jamie Murphy. If anything, they had to go out afterwards and show that they weren’t going to be cowed by these attacks and to show that they were committed to the mission, even though it was a very heavy load for them to bear, having lost three of their comrades in this initial foray into Kabul. MYKYTIUK: When we left — I mean, that’s certainly something we were bound to have some kind of casualty based on the statistics. But as we went into the operation and things seemed pretty stable, that fear abated somewhat. And then when this occurred, it just reminded us that the threat was serious, the threat was real, and that, again, just reinforced the need to prepare for it. TREMONTI: The Canadians stayed the course. They remained visible, accessible. More watchful, perhaps. But not deterred. Presidential elections were scheduled for October 2004. Parliamentary elections would follow. The roadmap was clear. The seeds of democracy were being planted in Afghanistan. For Canadian soldiers, the mission shifted beyond patrolling — they were securing polling stations, training Afghan security forces, and protecting election workers. BURTCH: The presidential election of 2004 is quite a daunting task for the international community, for the government of Afghanistan, to show the capacity for a democratic form of government. Introduction of security measures, both to prevent ballot stuffing or any malfeasance by any of the potential actors, as well as potential election spoilers through threats to ballot stations, election workers, and voters. That’s a tall order. TREMONTI: Then October 9, 2004. Afghanistan’s first presidential election. More than 10 million Afghans registered to vote, including millions of women. Hamid Karzai, the interim leader since the Bonn Conference in 2001, was on the ballot. So were 17 other candidates. The international community wanted to see Karzai win. BURTCH: He was favoured in part because he did have a stake in Kandahar. His family had a long history in relationship to power, I suppose you could say. He himself was very fluent in English and well educated and he seemed to be well connected throughout the South. TREMONTI: With 55 per cent of the vote, Hamid Karzai was declared the winner. On December 7, 2004 he was inaugurated as Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president. He stood in his signature green and purple striped chapan coat and Karakul hat and told the world that Afghanistan was being reborn. International observers called it historic. Canadian soldiers provided security throughout. They watched Afghans line up at polling stations, ink their fingers purple to show they’d voted, smile for the cameras. For a moment, in spite of the attacks and the persistent threats, it felt like the mission was working. Next up was the parliamentary election. It was supposed to happen months after the presidential vote. But security concerns and the sheer complexity of organizing delayed the parliamentary vote. It was eventually held almost a year later, on September 18 of 2005. Paul Franklin was in Kandahar for that vote. FRANKLIN: So the day of the election itself, the city was shut down. There was checkpoints on every major thoroughfare. And we would fly through all the areas. For basically two days, there was just no traffic within the city. And there was really no violence at all to be spoken of. There was a couple incidents, but nothing big. And it was very impressive to see. TREMONTI: Impressive. And exhausting. To make those elections happen, Canadian soldiers had spent months ensuring the election was secure. Foot patrols, surveillance missions, armed raids on illegal weapons were all part of the effort. They’d driven routes to clear IEDs. They’d stood guard while Afghans voted. And it worked. Millions voted. Afghanistan had a constitution, a president, and within a year, a sitting parliament. On paper, it was becoming a functioning democracy. As part of its outreach efforts, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan created a board game called The Road to Peace. Ten thousand copies distributed to children across the country. The mechanics were simple: spin an arrow, move your piece along a winding path. Land on a positive development — building a bridge, planting crops, opening a school — and you move forward. Land on violence or intimidation, and you slide backwards, away from progress. You can see a copy of it at the Canadian War Museum. BURTCH: For a board game that deals with contemporary affairs, kind of unflinching look at some of the challenges that still faced Afghanistan. That you don’t tend to get that in The Game of Life or in Candyland. TREMONTI: But the game captured something real. Progress in Afghanistan was never guaranteed. Even as new schools and roads were built, others were burned or mined. The optimism was temporary. The interactions Canadian soldiers had with local communities pointed to the complexity of their mission, and the legacy of Afghanistan’s decades of conflict. Here’s Paul Franklin recalling a conversation he had in Paghman, a district west of Kabul, which he describes as being anti-government and anti-Western. FRANKLIN: I remember this guy came up to me and he had this very royal Pakistani accent. I asked him where he was from and he said, “Oh, I was born in Paghman, but I had to leave for a while, and now I’m back.” And I’m like, “Oh okay, what did you do during the war?” and he said, “Well, I fought the Soviets for years.” And I said, “Okay, what did you do after the war?” and he said, “Well, after the war I was Taliban.” And I’m like, “Oh . . . okay.” And I guess he saw me kind of stutter and he grabs my arm and he goes, “Don’t worry, don't worry — I retired!” He laughed. I said, “Well that’s good, because I'm not retired.” So it was interesting to see that dichotomy where you’re trained to see the enemy and only understand one enemy. But you’re not trained to realize that these people have normal lives too. And maybe he does still hate the West, and hate Canadians, and hate all this stuff. But he, in the end, he’s talking to me in a normal day-to-day thing, and he’s offering for his son to go buy me a pop at the local store and, yeah. TREMONTI: The complexity of Afghanistan — of knowing who the enemy was, of understanding that yesterday’s fighter might be today’s ally, and tomorrow’s insurgent again — would only deepen in the years ahead. But by late 2005, the mission in Kabul was winding down. The Afghan government was standing — but it was fragile. The constitution was in place. Elections had been held. But security outside the capital was deteriorating. BURTCH: And you had, of course, the Taliban who themselves had a vote in all this process and were rearming and preparing for a sizable and quite, in some ways successful, campaign to retake the initiative in the south and east of Afghanistan TREMONTI: NATO was expanding beyond Kabul, pushing into the provinces. The alliance needed a lead nation for the south, for Kandahar Province. In May 2005, Defence Minister Bill Graham stood in Parliament and announced the decision. Canadian forces would leave Kabul. They would move to Kandahar, the spiritual homeland of the Taliban. FRANKLIN: Kandahar itself is a bit different place. Kabul has been destroyed by the war — the civil war mainly — and just a lot of bombed-out streets and bombed homes. Kandahar itself is the birthplace of the Taliban. They didn’t really have as much problems with the civil war. There’s a couple of spots that you see some destruction. But instead, what you tend to see is more construction. And so a lot of new roads are being built. A lot of little mini skyscrapers made out of mud brick. It’s actually quite a neat little place. Whereas Kabul, we would have roving blackouts, generally, in Kandahar the lights were always on at night and some roads you might even have streetlights. TREMONTI: In February 2006, the first Canadian battlegroup arrived in Kandahar. Task Force Orion — built around soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. It was the fighting core of a larger Canadian force that would take on the most dangerous ground in the country. BURTCH: Canadians knew going in that it was a different deployment than Kabul. That there was a different sort of mission than that which was in Kabul, albeit kind of similar sorts of equipment. So you were going to have the same kind of package of material. You’d have infantry. You’d have artillery. You’d have communications and supply and all that sort of thing. But it would start with a very different sort of model, which was the provincial reconstruction team. This idea that combined the diplomatic, the development, policing and reform, and then security, which would provide the kind of envelope in which that progress was meant to be measured and developed. TREMONTI: But the decision to return to Kandahar was actually part of something larger. BURTCH: This was a phased NATO expansion across east and south Afghanistan to begin with, that involved a number of different nations. The Dutch in Uruzgan, Canada in Kandahar, the British in Helmand, and overseen by NATO command. So, there was a conscious decision to re-enter Kandahar as part of this phased expansion of NATO into different regions of Afghanistan, in this case, involving a return to Kandahar for Canadians. TREMONTI: It was also one of the most dangerous. Kandahar came to prominence during the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. But its strategic importance goes far deeper than recent history. BURTCH: It was also important geographically because the way that the mountains basically created a barrier to transit through Afghanistan. So to get across Kandahar and to the Pakistan border and up to Kabul, there’s essentially a passage that had been followed all the way back since Alexander the Great. So geography mattered a little bit more. TREMONTI: Kandahar province was also more rural than Kabul, encompassing an area roughly the size of Nova Scotia, stretching south toward the Registan Desert. But running west from Kandahar City was a lush greenbelt of farmland cutting through the arid landscape. It was full of dense orchards, irrigation ditches or wadis, and marijuana fields growing over nine feet high. BURTCH: People think of Afghanistan as this dry and desert-like place. And it is in places, but not in that greenbelt where Canadians would be expending a lot of lives and treasure. [Music begins]. And then, of course, extends to the border with Pakistan, where there’s other dynamics at play. TREMONTI: In August of 2005, Canada launched a different kind of mission in Kandahar. The Provincial Reconstruction Team — or KPRT, or sometimes just PRT. [Music ends]. It was a “whole-of-government” experiment, bringing together Canadian Forces personnel, diplomats, development workers, and police trainers, all under one roof. And that roof was Camp Nathan Smith, a former fruit cannery that had been rebuilt by the US Army. When the Americans handed it over to the Canadians, the Canadians renamed it after Private Nathan Smith — one of the four Canadian soldiers killed in the friendly fire incident back in 2002. Meghan Myres was a development worker — an education officer for the KPRT. She deployed to Camp Nathan Smith in 2010. MEGHAN MYRES: Civilians at the KPRT generally live in converted shipping containers. Each container houses about two people usually, but there is space for up to four people on two bunk beds. There’s usually one window. Sometimes it’s blocked by concrete slabs if it’s in a particularly vulnerable spot. TREMONTI: The PRT’s mission was to work alongside local authorities in Kandahar — building governance, infrastructure, and security while the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army took shape. For the civilians on the team, that meant managing two worlds at once: the “Afghan Day” and the “Ottawa Day.” MYRES: Typically, the days were extremely long. You’d be in the office at about seven o’clock starting your “Afghan Day.” You might be handling requests from international partners to work on an education project or be involved in the education sector in some way and have to coordinate that with the local education district leader. And then later on, once the “Afghan Day” has finished, times have changed, and the “Ottawa Day” begins. So you have to manage all of the requests coming in from Ottawa for information, for updates, for progress reports on what’s happened that day. TREMONTI: But while development officers coordinated projects from inside Camp Nathan Smith, soldiers were out on the streets trying to implement what became known as the “3D Approach”— defence, diplomacy and development, all happening simultaneously, sometimes on the same block. Paul Franklin, the medic, would go out from Camp Nathan Smith on patrol. FRANKLIN: They call it the “3D Approach.” Basically, you could be fighting on one street, providing humanitarian aid on another street, and then doing, say, peacekeeping on another street. So, for us, it’s training at a simple soldier level. What happens is you have to be ready for any kind of contingency. You can go from handing out school supplies in one instance to having to defend a position to all of a sudden mediating between two warring factions. TREMONTI: That first PRT also included Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry, Canadian International Development Agency personnel, a handful of RCMP officers, and 250 soldiers. The soldiers provided security so the others could do their jobs. But right from the beginning, the PRT knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Decades of war had left Afghanistan with almost no functioning institutions. BURTCH: So they weren’t entering into an area where there had been easy avenues to pursue reconstruction. It’s not like in the former Yugoslavia where you are essentially going into an area that had certain functions that were disrupted by war. You were basically coming into an area that had nothing and building from the ground up. TREMONTI: And there was another problem. For years, armed militias had controlled the roads in southern Afghanistan, extracting money from farmers, truckers and travellers. The Taliban had cleared these militia checkpoints when they first rose to power — but then they just replaced them with their own people. Corruption was something Afghans had come to accept as the price of doing business. BURTCH: And so I think on one of the first walks through Kandahar City, Canadians go out on joint patrols with the police and people there are not shy in the markets of saying that, you know, “well part of the problem is that the people you’re patrolling with are the ones who are, you know, in some cases, shaking us down.” And they’re not doing it in an accusatory way. They say, “We understand they’re not getting paid elsewhere. They need to live too. But you know, that’s a problem that we deal with on a daily basis.” TREMONTI: It wasn’t just the police. Every decision — where to build a school, which contractor to hire, whose district to prioritize — carried political weight. Franklin explains how one PRT member adjusted to meet these challenges. FRANKLIN: And he’d walk into his office and it would just be names and pictures of faces, and trying to figure out who belongs to who, who’s related to who, and who owns this construction company, is going to profit from this way. Politically, who’s a friend of Karzai, who’s a cousin of Karzai, that kind of stuff. So it’s a very, very complex place, because we’re coming into it from a Western perspective. And so for us just to waltz in and say, “Okay, we’re going to build a school here.” Well, that’s all fine and dandy up until the day after you build that school, it’s burnt down. Now is it burnt down because the Taliban are in the area? Is it burnt down because the wrong person got the wrong contract for the mud, for the trucks, for the workers? Is it in the wrong neighbourhood? Did you happen to pick Mullah Omar’s neighborhood instead of someone else’s neighbourhood? [Music begins and ends]. TREMONTI: January 15, 2006. Diplomat Glyn Berry is returning from Kandahar Airfield to Camp Nathan Smith after meeting with local Afghan officials. Franklin is with the group. FRANKLIN: Glyn Berry is in the back rear seat. Will Salikin is in behind me. And Jeff Bailey is crew commanding on my right. And I’m driving. As we leave the airfield, we ready our weapons, jump back into our vehicles, and then we’re now on Highway 4 going into the city. We go through IED Alley, and I do remember that everybody was quiet and maybe a little bit more quieter that day than anything else. TREMONTI: Their vehicle is moving through the city at a healthy clip. When they pass a taxi stand, a van pulls out and merges alongside Berry’s G-Wagon. FRANKLIN: All of a sudden, the lead vehicle goes past the taxi stand, and just as my vehicle goes to that point, there is a tremendous — it doesn’t feel like an explosion to me, it feels like I have been in an accident — all of a sudden, bang! And the first thing I think of is that I hit a bus or something. TREMONTI: The van was packed with rockets, detonated by the driver. The explosion tore the vehicle apart. Glyn Berry was killed instantly. Three soldiers were seriously injured: Corporal Jeffrey Bailey, Private William Salikin, and Master Corporal Paul Franklin. FRANKLIN: My glasses are of course blown off, and I start rubbing my face trying to think of what I’m doing. But it feels good, so I rub it a little bit more, and then I rub my hands through my hair, and as I do, what I was actually doing was extinguishing the fire on my face and my hair. So my hair was on fire and my face was on fire. And so, by rubbing my face and rubbing my hair, I was extinguishing the fire. So, the fire’s out. I now look down at my left leg and I can see — it’s missing. And I’m also checking other parts and pieces to see if I’m going to be okay. And as I’m sitting there, I’m holding my left leg. I’m squeezing it. I’m looking at my right leg — it’s tucked underneath and I don’t know that it is almost completely destroyed. I’m missing my tibia and a whole bunch of meat. Probably about seven inches of calf muscle and leg muscle is just gone. TREMONTI: Paul Franklin lost both legs above the knee. At the Canadian War Museum, there’s a small artifact from that day: a dashboard hula girl nicknamed Jenna, her grass skirt singed by the blast. The Taliban claimed responsibility. BURTCH: Glyn Berry’s death was a targeted attack on a Canadian representative and it led essentially to the paralysis of the Provincial Reconstruction Team for quite some time because the civilian aspects of that mission — including diplomatic and aid representatives — were withdrawn until security could be assured or a different model was agreed upon. So essentially, left only the security component behind. So, the targeting of Glyn Berry did lead to a suspension of some of those strategic goals that Canada had embarked upon in Kandahar in addition to the security picture. But also t[SM3.1]he development and diplomatic aspects, they were basically put on hold as a result of the evident threat to those personnel. TREMONTI: As the spring of 2006 wore on, Canadian forces pushed further into hostile territory where firefights became routine and casualties mounted. On May 17, 2006 Canadian and Afghan forces launched Operation Bravo Guardian, a joint operation to clear Taliban fighters from villages southwest of Kandahar City. Captain Nichola Goddard was a Forward Observation Officer with the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. As her LAV III moved into the village of Bayanzi, Taliban fighters opened fire from multiple positions. Two rocket propelled grenades hit Goddard’s vehicle. Shrapnel struck her in the back of the head. She was killed instantly, the first Canadian female combat soldier to die by enemy fire. BURTCH: So that was remarkable in that respect. Although there had of course been casualties before and after, it did seem to be a bit of a high point. And it also took place around the same time, I believe on the same day, that debates were being held about whether to extend the mission in Afghanistan. [Music begins]. TREMONTI: We’ll return to Captain Goddard’s story in a later episode, when we talk about media coverage, casualties, and how Canadians felt about the war. Meanwhile the largest Canadian combat operation since Korea begins. And this time, the Taliban are ready. JOHN BARNES: And I found myself sitting in the back of a LAV, unable to hear, unable to stand, and my soldiers were still out on the ground fighting for their lives. TREMONTI: That’s next time on The Long War. The Long War: Canada in Afghanistan was produced by Lisa Gabriele and Neil Morrison. Our associate producer is Hailey Choi. The series was mixed by Cameron McIver. Executive producers from the Canadian War Museum are Jenny Ellison and Steve McCullough. Andrew Burtch is our historian throughout this series. After[SM4.1] Master Corporal Paul Franklin lost both legs above the knee, he underwent more than 30 surgeries. He learned to walk on prosthetic legs, and became a nationally known advocate for amputees. He continued serving in uniform until 2009. Some of the veterans who you’ve heard in this episode were interviewed for the Museum’s oral history project, called In Their Own Voices. To learn more, visit warmuseum.ca or see the links in the show notes. I’m Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening. [Music ends].