PREFACE
BOND
This is a book about Operation Medusa, a military battle fought in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province in Afghanistan in the first half of September 2006. The combatants were the Taliban on one side and a coalition of forces from many NATO nations on the other. As the subtitle of this book emphasizes, the battle was furious. It was also uniquely complex. Operation Medusa was the first major combat action ever led by NATO and the largest battle fought by Canadian troops since the Korean War. It was carried out under the command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which less than a month before had taken responsibility for the region in which all the action would take place. The Canadian battalion task force numbered some 800 men and women who would soon shoulder the burden of much of the fighting. They had arrived in the country to begin their rotation just days before the battle. Most of them had never seen combat before.
Direct control of NATO coalition forces in the area was my responsibility. As a brigadier general, I was the Commander of Regional Command (South) based in Kandahar, a position I had taken back in February of 2006. So when Operation Medusa began, I had been in place with my brigade headquarters and a previous rotation of Canadian soldiers for long enough to understand the enormity of the challenges we faced. I was concerned.
As Book One of this volume makes clear, the run-up to Operation Medusa began almost a year before the battle as we readied our Canadian soldiers, aviators, sailors and special-forces operators to deploy. Almost immediately, things began to go wrong. As the obstacles mounted, we learned enough to understand deeply that the outcome of a fight on this scale with the Taliban was uncertain. The competing priorities of governments, departments, regions, militaries, agencies and even other wars made every single day a high-speed chase along multiple tracks. Even in the retelling, the sheer number of factors that affected us can be hard to keep straight. I have included many lists and glossaries to help readers avoid confusion.
Book Two tells the tale of the battle itself. While only two weeks in duration, it called upon every resource we had, every ally we knew, every favour we could call in and every tactic we could deploy to apply constant pressure to the enemy without falling into the many traps set for us. The unfolding events of Book Two will be best understood once you have the context detailed in Book One, but if you get twitchy, go ahead and flip to the fighting.
For now, let me explain something.
A military is only as effective as the individual teams upon which it is built. As such, when Canada agreed to take over Regional Command South in Afghanistan on behalf of the NATO coalition as of July 2006, we knew that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would be effective only if our forces could all gel into a comprehensive combined and joint team, where combined means a force of troops from more than one nation and joint means a force of personnel from more than one military service, such as army with navy and air force.
Months earlier, we had looked hard at our own team first. Canadians would form a joint task force and a brigade headquarters that would command coalition efforts in the whole region. Together they would be called Task Force Aegis. When we gathered for the first time to conduct training in Wainwright, Alberta in the fall of 2005, we were a fractured if well-intentioned band of soldiers from a number of disparate regiments and corps. Many of our brigade headquarters staff would be coming from other countries; some of those but not all joined us to train. We were not yet a team. That would come in time, and time was our enemy.
Task Force Aegis was to be built on the core of the 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG), of which I had just taken command. We all needed to figure out how to work together, and this started with my office and personal team—which began with me, my personal assistant Trevor Friesen, my executive assistant David Buchanan, and our formation sergeant major Mike MacDonald. Our quartet quickly established a routine and we were relieved to discover that we worked well together. Satisfied, we then began building our tactical team, commonly called a TAC. This was the larger group of soldiers we’d need at brigade headquarters to man our small convoy of vehicles, and the communications and protection party that would allow us to operate safely as a unit in the field. Our TAC would evolve several times before we reached Afghanistan.
The leader of that tactical team was Sergeant Bill Irving from Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians). Bill was a character—open-hearted, opinionated, humorous and frequently profane. An outstanding soldier, he would soon prove to be the soul of our team. During our workups in Wainwright, Alberta, Bill established himself as our protector, guide and inspiration. Adopting us as his personal charges, he treated all of us with a classic parental mix of high expectation, strict discipline and deep empathy. It was fitting that we gave him the nickname Mother.
To our growing family we added a close protection team of members of the Canadian Forces Military Police, which had recently taken over from Joint Task Force 2 the responsibility for protection of all but the most senior of Canada’s leaders. Afghanistan was their first mission, and I was their first assignment. When Mike MacDonald and I met that team in Edmonton, we were impressed. They were professional, determined, fit and ready for hell.
In Wainwright our growing band formed into a tight, mission-focused entity that gradually became known to each of us as the Posse. We openly admitted our individual strengths and weaknesses in an earnest effort to figure out how we could function as a high-performing unit. We lived and operated in close quarters, and our bond strengthened with every passing day. As we refined our roles and routines, we became familiar with one another and soon started using nicknames. Bill Irving, of course, was Mother. I was the Boss. Mike MacDonald was Bomber, a nod to his artillery background and master-gunner designation. Our driver Greg Moon was Mooner. Our signaller Keith Brown was Brownie, while our close protection team member Adam Seegmiller was Seegy, and so on. All apt if not ingenious monikers. As with fighter pilots, when we found a name that fit someone we assigned it as a handle, a shortcut acknowledging that he or she was part of our close-knit unit. In this way, our Posse was no different than any other tactical grouping operating in RC South. Those working together in small teams under the arduous conditions in Afghanistan felt part of a family whose members admired, trusted and cared for each other. Not surprising. After all, tribal affiliation is the mechanism by which our species has survived and prospered.
Sergeant Bill Irving was known to us all as Mother. Tactical commander of our team, Bill led us whenever we went outside the wire, typically three to four days each week. When training in Canada before our tour, I had asked for a team to man my LAV command vehicle in theatre. I was given an outstanding one. Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), an armoured regiment in my brigade, formed the core and added a close protection team of military police. These and others made up what we all soon referred to as the Posse. We became a family and, while I may have been thought of as the patriarch, the centre of the family was Bill. Mother was professional, tough as nails with a heart of gold, foul-mouthed as they come and generous to a fault. In my career I have never had more faith in any soldier of any rank. We laughed together, cried together and shared an openness that lasts to this day. Mother was my gauge on how the troops felt, never shying away from telling me what was and was not working. He was the only one in the formation I allowed to lecture me (always with good reason) about why we could not do what I had asked. Often it was as simple as insisting I comply with safety requirements (helmet, glasses, gloves, etc.). From time to time he gave me the finger, which I took as a signal that I was putting myself or someone in peril. That said, I am intrigued that a man to whom I have entrusted my life and whom I respect to this day can sip tea out of a cup and saucer with the proper finger etiquette. We must have caught Mother in a moment of weakness.Credit 2
Mike MacDonald, whose artillery background inspired us to call him “Bomber,” was our formation (brigade) sergeant major. In our headquarters, his cabin stood next to mine. Bomber and I had a ritual; we started every day with PT, followed by a cup of coffee in his cabin over which we discussed our soldiers, their morale and the situations they faced. Bomber had his finger on the pulse, which I greatly appreciated given the insane tempo we all maintained and the hundreds of dispersed teams we managed. I could trust the Bomber to let me know what was and was not working. A consummate soldier of few words, he was highly regarded by all, and he was my trusted confidant. Now I have to state for the record that every morning when we chatted in his cabin, the Bomber put on a country and western CD to create a supposedly relaxing atmosphere. But he had only one CD to his name, and so we listened to the same handful of country tunes day after day, month after month. Halfway through the tour, he announced that he had procured a brand new CD. I was thrilled, but not for long. When he put it on, I could tell it was new all right, but only a new copy of the same old CD. Oh well, one can never discount the value of routine and consistency. To this day I think back on the Bomber’s skill and his advice with admiration and gratitude.Credit 3
We formed the Posse twelve years ago, and to this day we refer to each other as we did during our mission. After depending on a group for your very life, that life can come to feel a little empty without those comrades by your side. We were united by the adventures and horrors we lived through. When we bump into each other now on the street, we will often slip away for a cup of coffee or pint of beer and a round or two of war stories, as all veterans do.
In the months leading up to Operation Medusa, our brigade headquarters team grew to include a wider group that would be soon working out of our building at Kandahar Airfield. Many of them appear in the pages that follow for good reason. They each proved they could function under duress, applying their expert knowledge to help me to make life-and-death decisions within impossible timelines. My assistant chief of operations Shane Schreiber, senior planner Steve Carr, and my branch heads of intelligence and operations all knew one truth—that the men and women in the units who reported to the brigade depended on us for critical guidance and support. Establishing tight communication between our brigade headquarters and the commanding officers of every unit that rotated through Regional Command South became our priority.
A particular challenge we faced on the tour was to establish that same depth of communication with new, often unfamiliar units that joined our brigade while we were already moving at speed in theatre. In many cases the compressed timelines and accelerated tempo would not allow us to develop the close relationships we wanted. But we made it work and, on balance, Regional Command South was as tight an operation as we could build given the circumstances.
Tragically, casualties are something every military has to face. In peacetime there are accidents, whereas in war there are both accidents and losses from engagements. At every level, all of us serving in Afghanistan did everything we could to mitigate the threat to our men and women, but we could never remove it. So going in we admitted the gravity of our situation and prepared to face the horrid truth.
Nothing, however, did really prepare us for the death of our own. After a visit to Gumbad in the northern part of Kandahar Province in April, our Posse suffered its first casualties. I had departed by air with some of them while the remainder were to return by road. Greg Moon’s photograph on the cover of this book was taken at exactly that moment. On their trip back, in convoy, those travelling overland hit an IED. Lieutenant Bill Turner, Bombardier Myles Mansell, Corporal Randy Payne and Corporal Matt Dinning were all killed. Mother managed the unimaginable scene with incredible support from Charlie Company’s 7 Platoon led by Lieutenant Kevin Shamoo. When the call went out that our TAC had been hit, Kevin’s team immediately jumped into their vehicles and drove to the site of the explosion. Their own vehicle was disabled enroute, so they immediately dismounted and ran the last kilometre to the incident site in full kit. In spite of the oppressive heat, Kevin’s men sped to the assistance of other soldiers in need. This was just one of too many incidents during our tour where unimaginable things happened and where men and women do whatever is needed to help others. That philosophy of standing beside and taking care of each other made all of us tighter and stronger.
The Posse learned very early the horrors of the mission. That April incident was a sobering indoctrination to our new reality and the tremendous responsibility each of us would shoulder. The violent loss of our friends plagues us still, the kind of memory that tormented veterans keep to themselves or share only with others who have experienced the horrors of war.
When I came back from Afghanistan, I didn’t have the same kind of brotherhood camaraderie, and that terrified me. We all have demons. We’re not the same as when we went there. Is it post-traumatic stress? Not sure. But I do notice that I need adrenaline on a daily basis and I seek it out.
ADAM “SEEGY” SEEGMILLER
We travelled as the Posse and carried out full mission planning everywhere we went. Our tactical commander, Mother, conducted the planning as directed by my executive assistant David “Buck” Buchanan. We used either ground or air transportation depending on time and security considerations. During Operation Medusa we used helos for the most part to optimize the time I spent in my headquarters and with my units in the field. While deployed, I took a security team comprising specially trained military police, along with my brigade sergeant major Mike MacDonald, my communicator Keith Brown and my personal assistant Greg Chan. We always went as a team so we were able to operate as such should a tactical event happen.Credit 4
This event shaped us and gave us the necessary strength and resilience we would need for those times we had to rely on each other even when not all of us were together due to leave or tactical situations. Our four friends were gone and they had to be replaced—though they could never be truly replaced. The members of the Posse together sought out and chose soldiers to augment our team. With such noble boots to fill, the new additions faced a difficult task, but they were welcomed warmly and fully, and we were soon able to carry on with our mission.
Having experienced true esprit de corps among our own Posse, Bomber and I then sought out that kind of spirit within all the command teams and units we visited in the region. We looked for the tightness, sense of familiarity, respect and trust a team needs to be effective. Where there was candid dialogue between officers, NCOs (non-commissioned officers) and soldiers, the unit could be depended upon to work well together. Where there was tension and distance among the troops, we knew we would have to spend more time helping put them on a better path.
In my career I have been part of many such outstanding teams, but the Posse will forever be the one that saw the most, suffered the worst, and yet endured by caring for each other. The stories we wrote through our shared experience and the lifelong bonds we forged are the greatest gifts I took from our mission. With that in mind, I proudly present the members of our team.
| THE POSSE | |
| TACTICAL COMMAND POST | |
| Brownie | Master Corporal Keith Brown, commander’s signaller |
| Buck | Major David Buchanan, executive assistant |
| Jackie Chan | Lieutenant Greg Chan, personal assistant |
| Boss | Brigadier General David Fraser, commander, Regional Command South |
| Captain Trevor Friesen, personal assistant | |
| Jeb | Corporal Jeff Hawes, gunner |
| Mother | Sergeant Bill Irving, TAC commander |
| Bomber | Chief Warrant Officer Mike MacDonald, formation sergeant major |
| Mooner | Corporal Gregory Moon, driver |
| Janan Mustafa, interpreter | |
| Corporal Aaron Pope, gunner | |
| Corporal John Hodges, gunner | |
| CLOSE PROTECTION TEAM | |
| Project Bryant | Corporal Kane Bryant |
| Corporal Matt Dinning (KIA, April 2006) | |
| Corporal Dave Houthuyzen | |
| Bombardier Myles Mansell (KIA, April 2006) | |
| Dooner | Corporal Allan Muldoon |
| Corporal Jamie Offrey | |
| Corporal Randy Payne (KIA, April 2006) | |
| Seegy | Corporal Adam Seegmiller |
| Bluto | Master Seaman Rick Tucker, close protection team second-in-command |
| Lieutenant William Turner (KIA, April 2006) | |
| Master Warrant Officer Shawn Walsh, close protection team leader |