CHAPTER 7
LEARN
Other than my wife, the thing I missed the most was grabbing gears on my Harley, having my face in the wind, and letting all the bullshit flow. That’s why I brought my Harley mirrors with me and mounted them on my turret.
MOTHER
As we operated in theatre, we were astonished daily by our own ignorance. Coming out of the most intensive training to which Canadian soldiers had ever been subjected in peacetime, many of us had assumed we were prepared. This wasn’t an arrogant assumption. We had digested all the doctrinal manuals and studied enemy tactics and battlefield manoeuvres at length. We had been given unlimited staff and materiel with which to build pre-deployment exercises that stretched us in every imaginable way. We had challenged ourselves with team-testing command-post scenarios, subjected ourselves to high-intensity battle simulations and conducted full-on, live-fire exercises. We had refined our communications protocols and decision-making models using real-time feeds from theatre, interacting with active units already in Afghanistan. The list went on and on and on. We had never been this well trained for anything.
But we were still nowhere near ready.
With national and international political pressures, wildly accelerated timelines and daily risk to life and limb, the world we entered was its own mad reality. Nothing could prepare us for the number, range and intensity of operations we had to undertake but those operations themselves.
The first few months on the ground after arriving in February were fast. We installed our brigade, composed (as Ben Freakley had worried about) of soldiers still inexperienced in the combination of combat operations and national reconstruction we had taken on. The Americans we relieved were combat veterans with many tours in Afghanistan and Iraq under their belts. They had grown up in the United States military, a brilliantly engineered, hard-driving and fiercely competitive system that produces arguably the world’s most effective warriors. Those were big shoes to fill.
It might be helpful here to review some terminology. Mission-focused brigades like ours in RC South are supported by dedicated on-site headquarters staff, which in our case we had stationed at the Kandahar Airfield. That brigade relies for its effect on units of trained military personnel who join the mission (or, as we say, arrive in theatre) as part of a task force created for the mission at hand. Those personnel come from home units in Canada, typically of 500 to 700 soldiers each, known as either battalions or regiments. Both these terms refer to groups of the same size. The difference is only that infantry units and service support units use the term “battalion,” while armoured, engineer and artillery units use the term “regiment.” In Canada, these battalions and regiments recruit, train and manage military personnel but never deploy on overseas missions in their existing configurations. When it’s time for operations, they assign their personnel to a larger force which, depending on the need, may be configured as its own distinct battalion, a task force (such as Task Force Orion which went to Afghanistan in early 2006 and Task Force 3-06 which replaced them in August of that year), a brigade, division or even an army. But no matter the size, each of these operational formations will be tailor-made for its mission with personnel and equipment suited to the specific nature of the environment and the specific threat expected within it.
To understand the scale of an operation, it’s useful to know that a brigade normally has a mix of three infantry battalions, one armoured regiment, one engineer regiment, one service battalion, an artillery regiment and other support units, together numbering some 4,000–5,000 troops. A division is a larger unit still, with 10,000 or even 20,000 soldiers under its command.
Canada has long been a battalion-centric army, and as such has been focused on giving battalion commanders the training and operational experience they need to be effective. But Canadian command of brigade-level operations in combat has been rare since the 1940s. All that changed when we agreed to run RC South. While battalions such as those commanded in Afghanistan by Ian Hope and Omer Lavoie would have their own steep learning curves, we at the brigade level would have a hell of a time figuring out how to manage multiple battalions, international partners, aviation, materiel, medical care, reporting up multiple chains of command, and the gnarly politics of a coalition operating in an area of one million square kilometres. The Americans, who have had continual experience at all levels, found operations in Afghanistan well within the level of their skill and experience. Not us. We had a lot to learn.
While we couldn’t appreciate it at the time, we were fortunate to begin our tour with a number of low-intensity missions. These built over time in both tempo and complexity, which allowed us to work out the kinks and improve our speed of response. As we rose to the operational tempo required to build a nation while fighting a counter-insurgency, we also had to accommodate the arrival in spring of the British into Helmand and the Dutch into Uruzgan, two vital provinces within RC South. That involved complex international logistics undertaken while engaging the enemy.
As the British built a support base in the spring of 2006 to house their 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (3 PARA) in Helmand and the Dutch established themselves in Uruzgan, it fell to the Canadians to keep the Taliban fully occupied in those two provinces as well as Kandahar. This job was taken on by Lieutenant Colonel Ian Hope and his Task Force Orion. From the get-go, their aim was to move around the region looking for Taliban nests to prod.
I have known Ian Hope for many years. I was Ian’s battalion commander in the 2nd Battalion PPCLI, and we served in Bosnia when he was a company commander. He has worked for me as a staff officer and his intellect is well known. Ian is a charismatic and passionate officer who throws himself into whatever he does. He is single-minded and a hard charger. Ian had a great roster of non-commissioned members and officers who commanded outstanding troops. Ian took personal interest in every mission outside the wire, and was there in front all the time. 1 PPCLI did a great job taking over from the American Task Force Gun Devil. During Ian’s six months in theatre, he led his unit through countless operations and distinguished himself and his unit in fights in Sangin, Garmsir and throughout Kandahar. I flew home to Edmonton following his tour to conduct his change of command parade. All who attended had great and justifiable respect for everything his unit had accomplished.Credit 16
Ian was just the guy to take on the task. He was bright and confident. He related well to his soldiers, in part because he had served in the ranks himself before taking his commission. An independent thinker with strong, sometimes aggressive opinions, Ian was also a good communicator who kept everyone around him informed. He was tough to manage but manageable. As commanding officer of the Canadian army’s 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (1 PPCLI) in 2005, he had been the obvious choice to lead Task Force Orion, which then spent the first part of its six-month tour in Afghanistan travelling throughout RC South to fight the Taliban. With Task Force Orion on the job, our partners had the time to settle in and the provincial reconstruction teams time to bolster economic development.
With Task Force Orion busy in the field and my brigade headquarters fully engaged with RC South, our education began in earnest in February 2006. Not a day went by from then till August without a lesson learned. But four incidents in particular taught us about the Taliban—and about ourselves—in ways that would prove instrumental during Operation Medusa.
Our first big test came during the brigade-level Operation Grant’s Return in Zabul Province in June. RC South moved the bulk of the American 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment into the northern reaches of Zabul Province to re-establish government authority along a great swath of Taliban-controlled territory. Canadians hadn’t been involved in an operation of this scope since the Korean War, and managing the vast number of assets in play alone was a daunting prospect. Detailed planning was critical to make sure logistics, manoeuvre and intelligence were all coordinated. Doing that competently while learning on the job was a challenge. This was especially true at the brigade level, given the number and variety of assets under our control, and it required that we master the art of complex operations across all three lines of operation: governance, defence and development.
The second occurred in Helmand that same month. Just as the United Kingdom’s 3 PARA was due to arrive in the province, a kandak (battalion) of the Afghan National Army (ANA) was ambushed coming out of the village of Kajaki on the eastern banks of the Helmand River. Kajaki was the site of a hydroelectric power dam with great economic and strategic importance to the region. The attack on the ANA battalion by the Taliban highlighted the complexity of activity in the region and the disparate chains of command in Afghanistan. The ANA neither reported nor coordinated their activities with us. Even their embedded American trainers reported to a different authority. They didn’t communicate with us at all. Similarly, the U.S. special forces operated on different systems, answering to a separate chain of command. And yet we operated in the same space, so trying to help our soldiers when they were in contact with the enemy was a messy business.
After a vicious, day-long firefight, the battered Afghan soldiers made it to Forward Operating Base Wolf (later called FOB Robinson). We had decided to send a Canadian platoon from our regional reserve to reinforce the embattled Afghan soldiers, who were seriously fatigued after their ordeal. But things got worse. A tired American soldier, muddled in the chaos of battle, killed one Canadian and one American soldier and injured many others. To stabilize the situation ahead of the arrival of the British into Helmand, I ordered Major Bill Fletcher and a platoon from Charlie Company into Sangin, the notorious hub of the opium trade about 30 kilometres downriver from Kajaki. The five-day action we had anticipated turned into weeks of intermittent fighting, with the Taliban once again taking control of this lucrative drug-production centre.
It was essential to avoid 3 PARA having to fight their way into theatre, so we decided to raise the stakes. Under Operation Mountain Thrust (our first time in the box as the divisional main effort) Ben Freakley gave us the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment (2-87), a combat-experienced task force from RC East. Supported by aviation, they would form up with Ian Hope’s 1 PPCLI, the incoming British 3 PARA, units of the Afghan ANA and other NATO forces to re-establish Afghan governance in Helmand Province. The immediate challenge was to disrupt the enemy before, ultimately, taking Sangin back from the Taliban. This effort was preceded by sizeable special forces operations in northern Helmand and adjacent areas in Uruzgan, after which the formation was handed over to me. Our job was to plan for and execute an attack on Sangin on July 16, which we were able to do with 2-87, 1 PPCLI, 3 PARA, Afghan and Estonian forces—more than 2,500 troops in all. They pressed into the town from three different directions, eventually wresting the district centre from the enemy, then cordoning off and clearing the Taliban compounds at key locations in the town.
The retaking of Sangin was the first brigade attack conducted under Canadian command since the Second World War. Our planning was exhaustive, our rehearsals comprehensive—yet despite our efforts, our execution was less than perfect. Inexperience on the part of some coalition partners resulted in critical missteps in timing. Chief among them, the British paratroopers from 3 PARA arrived a full 45 minutes after the time set for the three-pronged strike. This was further aggravated by the interference of their national contingent commander, Brigadier Ed Butler.
That totally disrupted the synchronization of joint fires and intelligence collection. The timeline was completely disrupted, and not by the enemy but by the coalition arrangements. And they’re fighting with different equipment, different doctrine and those caveats that affect what people will really do. You have some leaders who are committed to what they need to do and many leaders who are not.
BEN FREAKLEY
Because we failed to execute as a single force with overwhelming pressure, we allowed many of the enemy to slip away even as we were retaking the town. Granted, governmental authority had been re-established, no coalition casualties had been incurred, and our formation had had a good workout that day, so in many ways the operation had been a success. Yet our inexperience had cost us. We had in no way achieved all our intended effects. We had to get better.
And we did. Springing from our experiences at the start of the mission and in battles such as Sangin, we learned enough to be able to launch short-notice operations with better effect, so the next big lesson was positive. I will never forget my radio communication with Ian Hope right after securing Sangin. I told him that before returning to Kandahar he had to take his troops south down the Helmand River to rout the Taliban out of a town called Garmsir. He instantly committed. I asked if he had the men, equipment and ammunition to do the job. He assured me he did. I asked if he had any questions. He said, “Just one. Where the hell is Garmsir?”
Understandable. At the time, we hardly knew these small towns and villages. Many were simply too small to be on any of our charts. To guide Ian onto target, I drew a map of the Helmand River, putting an X where I thought Garmsir was. In a notable fusion of low tech and high tech, I then dispatched that hand-drawn chart to him by helicopter with the advice, “Head toward this spot until they fire at you. Then you’ll know you’ve found Garmsir.” Ably supported by a talented logistics team under Lieutenant Colonel John Conrad, Ian Hope and his Patricias deployed swiftly and smartly to the south. When they met the enemy, they acted decisively. After fierce fighting they captured the two towns of Garmsir and Nawa. Their success illustrated just how far we had come.
Our tempo was like nothing we could have imagined before. At the brigade level, our average daily activity was nineteen significant activities (SIGACTS), which typically included repelling six rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attacks, two mortar attacks, five small-arms attacks, one sniper attack and one improvised explosive device (IED) attack, necessitating at least four medevacs. Brutal.
But advancement along the learning curve was not ours alone; the Taliban were educating themselves at the same rate. Whenever we employed a novel and successful tactic, they would evaluate the factors underlying their defeat and evolve. Such is the progress of armed conflict. We saw this during an incident I offer as my fourth example. It occurred on August 3, when Ian Hope attacked into Panjwayi on his way back to Kandahar from one of his many excursions into Taliban-dominated terrain. Determined to harass the enemy one more time, he swung up a roadway in Pashmul, just north of the Arghandab River, to an American-built white schoolhouse complex. One of his lead vehicles hit an IED and, when that happened, the Taliban, who had been waiting undercover, rose and fired on the stranded vehicle and those behind it. In the ensuing fierce firefight, many were wounded, while Sergeant Vaughan Ingram, Corporals Christopher Reid and Bryce Keller, and Private Kevin Dallaire were killed in action. It was at this point we understood we’d seen something new. Never before had we encountered an IED incident covered by fire. The Taliban had changed their behaviour, and that day we learned a cruel lesson on just how fluid operations and conditions were going to be in Afghanistan.
By then Ian and his troops were all experienced and battle-hardened. They had conducted themselves exceptionally throughout their tour—but paradoxically, through their persistent and deliberate irritation, had forced the Taliban to pick up their game. August 3 had been a bloody day for all, and it was to be the opening salvo in the build-up to Operation Medusa.