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My first few days at Camp Nathan Smith were fairly uneventful. The day was filled with lectures, training and time at the firing range; the evenings mostly consisted of socializing and trying to get my new room organized to my liking. I had a roommate for that first week, but he was soon to leave for one of the forward operating bases or FOBs. From there, 10 from my group along with 7 from the previous group would work with US Military Police in order to mentor and train the Police Officers of Kandahar City.
My job title is Administrative NCO, which really means I do a whole lot of everything to keep the mission running. That includes procurement, managing everyone’s holidays, planning our people’s mouvements with their military escorts and being a part of the Quick Response Force (QRF). The QRF is basically a group of soldiers (and one policeman) who are ready to head out on just a few minutes’ notice to respond to a wide variety of incidents in and around the city. To date, I have been called out five times to head into Kandahar City.
At current the camp is in the midst of
a RIP (relief in place) which means that new military personnel are arriving to replace those whose tours are ending. There is some overlap so the place is a bit crowded.
The weather has been great; daytime highs in the high 30’s give way to nights in the high 20’s. It has rained a couple of times and we’ve even had a thunderstorm. A couple of dust storms have even been stirred up by sudden winds.
There are 10 CIVPOL officers assigned to Camp Nathan Smith with me. 4 of them are from my original group. In addition to the 2 bosses, there are some that are assigned to the training centre, while others mentor higher ranking ANP officers by meeting with them at Police Headquarters a few times a week. All of us are responsible for taking shifts on the QRF, right now; there are only 5 of us here, which means the QRF shifts are more frequent. The remainder are on holidays or on course in Kabul.
On Monday, I was called onto QRF twice. On both occasions an old soviet tank shell had been converted into an IED and placed near a school. As I
rolled up to the scene in the back of the Canadian Forces Light Armoured Vehicle, I could see the crowded street on the video monitor. LAVs do not have windows, so 6 people, including me and a language assistant, are crammed into a dark metal box as the 6 wheeled vehicle makes its way through Kandahar in a convoy of 4 vehicles. As we roll to a stop, the ramp at the back of the vehicle lowers. The soldiers on board exit to secure the area. They painstakingly will check the ground in the area around the vehicles to ensure that no immediate threats exist. During this time, I remain in the LAV along with the language assistant. I take up a position in the air sentry hatch at the back of the vehicle, a position vacated by the soldiers who are out checking the area. As I pop my upper torso through the hatch I have an elevated position from which I provide overwatch to the personnel who dismounted the vehicles. I begin to scan the area with my C7 rifle in hand. Behind me is a gunner in a turret that rotates 360 degrees, he is slightly higher
up than I am and is focused on his job, making sure no harm comes to his colleagues.
As the dismounted soldiers scan more ground, the LAV starts to move forward. The convoy moves to a position in front of a series of stores. From my position atop the LAV in the air sentry hatch, I can see a flurry of activity on the sidewalks. Shopkeepers are scrambling to close their businesses and lower the metal blinds that protect them. It all looks like a well rehearsed drill. I imagine that after so many years of conflict the people in this country have learned that when armoured vehicles park outside your store, you should probably call it a day. Meanwhile, I can see kids everywhere, running and pedaling their bicycles. Most wave at the men sticking out of the LAVs, I awkwardly wave back while trying to remain at the ready with my weapon. Soon, the crowds thin out.
Eventually, the patrol commander gives me the all clear to dismount, I push the switch to lower the ramp and my boots hit the streets of Kandahar once again. By now, the block is all but deserted. The crowds
are being corralled away by Afghan Policemen who were at the scene before we ever rolled up. I am tasked with mentoring those policemen by ensuring that the safety cordon is properly set up, well out of harm’s way. As is often the case, the cordon is too close to the IED. I speak to the on-scene ANP commander and explain that it would be wise to move everyone back another block and divert traffic there as well. The commander instructs his men and the cordon makes its way a little further. The ANP officers put out a few ragged looking traffic cones and assume a position at the corner with their AK-47s in tout. Along with my military force protection, I set up a secondary cordon 100 m inside that of the ANP.
A few motorists argue with the policemen, seemingly telling them that we are blocking their path to wherever they are going. The policemen shout back, I imagine they are telling them that there are other ways to get to where they are going. This is a scene I have experienced hundreds of times back home. I guess people really are the same everywhere. (Hot tip:
the police do not close down roads for entertainment, if it's blocked, go another way.)
In the background, I can see the military explosive experts deploying their robot. They’ve found the device and are working on it.
A few distracted motorcyclists fail to react quickly to the ANP barricade and continue speeding towards our position. This causes a sudden heightened tension amongst our ranks. Weapons are raised and hand gestures directed towards the rider, he cannot be allowed to get too close to our personnel, the risk is too great that he may intend harm to us. Luckily, on this day, everyone gets the message in time; others have not been so lucky and paid a high price for their lack of attention.
My headset crackles and I hear a warning that the device will be disrupted. This is followed by a thundering blast. This signifies that the device has been rendered safe. Within a half hour of this, the order is given to remount in preparation for our return home. I shake hands with the ANP commander and ask him to give his men an attaboy for a job well done. I climb back into the LAV
and pop out the hatch one last time until my military colleagues are also ready to go. Very soon we are rolling back to the camp. As I see the gate on the monitor, I breathe a small sigh of relief and realize that we are all doing it. Although we are not fearful as we leave the relative safety of the base, there is still a sense of relief as we are let in the gates.
In a few weeks, I will board a helicopter and head out on leave. I will be flown to a larger base from where I will board an aircraft to Dubai. There I will catch a commercial flight to Germany where I will meet Erin.
***The following is an article from the Toronto Star from May 11th***
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—When the paramount concern is death by Taliban suicide attack, the little things go unnoticed.
So small wonder that nobody - not the Canadian police, nor the American MPs, nor even the Afghan cops - was aware of the pungent little plant at their feet Tuesday afternoon as they stepped with considerable relief back inside the
bomb-pocked walls of the Afghan Provincial Police Headquarters in downtown Kandahar.
Together, they had just completed an extended foot patrol through the heart of the city the Taliban vows will soon be theirs again. They rubbed shoulders with hundreds upon hundreds of Kandaharis - everyday people far more accustomed to soldiers barging through town in hermetically sealed armoured vehicles.
And from the Toronto Star’s vantage, a good three-quarters of Kandahar was happy to meet them face to face, eye to eye. Better this than being run off the road by a convoy of LAVs. There were many smiles, waves and friendly “Salaams.” Bakers handed out flatbread fresh from the oven to the passing patrol. One woman even reached beneath her burqa, wagging a hand of welcome.
It was a sitting-duck scenario and everyone knew it. But however nerve-ratting the job of dismounting and patrolling on foot - one of the Americans on Tuesday called it a “sphincter-tightener” - it also is crucial to the counter-insurgency strategy NATO is rolling out to bring the population to its side.
And crucially, there were newly minted Afghan police in the mix, all graduates of the Canadian-led training program at
nearby Camp Nathan Smith, where RCMP, OPP, even Toronto cops still toil in relative obscurity.
Back safely at police HQ - and don’t kid yourself, this much-bombed compound is a routine target of insurgents, most recently a multiple-suicide bomb attack in March - one each of the Canadians, Americans and Afghans was selected to line up for a valedictory photo.
Which brings us to the little plant. There at their feet, right inside police headquarters, stood a thriving foot-high marijuana shrub.
Joint patrol, indeed.
Call it a reality check. For several days now, the small gaggle of reporters here at Camp Nathan Smith have been subjected to bit of a dog-and-pony show on the wonders of police training - well-intentioned Canadian police officers leading us from the classroom to the firing range, assessing with carefully scripted enthusiasm the six-week course that currently is transforming some 50 young and job-hungry Afghan men into fully fledged policemen.
And truth be told, things look better than they did some two years ago, when Kandaharis complained the then payless and endemically corrupt police were robbing them blind. For starters and most importantly, pay reform is starting to work for the cops of Kandahar City (if not the outlying districts) - the rank and file now receive regular monthly stipends of 12,000 to 15,000 Afghanis ($260 to $325), more than enough to live on without shaking down the citizenry for their daily bread.
What is especially striking is the extent to which the Canadian police mentors have extended their own footprint - volunteers from cop-shops across Canada now are venturing out regularly to all 12 Kandahar police substations to monitor the progress of their newly minted trainees. In so doing, they are taking chances far beyond what the rest of the NATO civilian police mentors do.
A case in point: Toronto Police Service Const. Amir Butt (one of 11 Toronto police in the program) two days ago ventured out to dangerous District 9, a transient-filled patch of the city, when word came that a batch of his graduates had uncovered an IED.
“I just needed to make sure they were following through. Their job is to create a ring of security so local Afghan civilians don’t stumble onto the bomb and get killed. But sometimes they just call and tell us its there and then they run away,” Butt told the Star.
“But they got it right this time. And the only way we can be sure is to go out there and see for ourselves.”
Two years ago a chronic Kandahari complaint was the lack of Pashtoons in a police force dominated by Afghanistan’s more northern ethnicities - Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara. The current crop of trainees includes 33 Pashtoons in a class of 50. The other 17, all Dari-speakers, learn in their own language - thus two sets of teachers offering guidance in both languages.
Moreover, the Canadians now have expanded their training to focus on the top with a modified leadership and management course, the intent being to train a new wave of Afghan cops capable of becoming trainers in their own right.
But now the caveats. For all the Canadian bravado - there was even a Mountie from Ottawa walking alongside the Afghan police in Tuesday’s precarious foot patrol - the reality is a full 50 per cent of the police trainees are illiterate, incapable of reading or writing in either language.
And even if you write off the pot plant found at police HQ as a weed borne by the wayward wind, Afghanistan’s fledgling police force is without question populated by plenty of pie-eyed pipers. And little wonder, given they are the most easily reachable fodder for insurgent bombs.
The attrition rate is massive. There is a constant dilemma of quantity versus quality. And with public approval for military involvement in Afghanistan on the wane just about everywhere, one gets the sense quantity is winning.
One final, awkward tangle is the fact that whatever strides are being made in police training, the ANP fall under the jurisdiction of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, or NDS - the very organization at the heart of the Canadian detainee scandal. It’s one of the reasons why everyone here at Camp Nathan Smith seems to be speaking in press releases - there’s political kryptonite up the food chain. And nobody wants to go there.
Privately, one senior Canadian development official here told the Star he feels disgust at how the detainee saga has consumed every molecule of oxygen on Canada’s role in the country. “It’s the only f—king story and it makes me sick. People have put their lives on the line to do so many other things that have gone completely unnoticed. It has made a lot of us bitter and twisted.”
Butt, the Toronto officer, is a touch more philosophical. Taking chances for the right reasons suits him, but he is under no illusion - Canada, he says, still is doing good work. But we almost certainly won’t be around long enough to see it through.
“It’s going to take years, obviously. But I see it working. And if we aren’t here to finish the job, I’m keeping faith that others will step in behind us. I just have to hope that is how it goes.”
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Frank
non-member comment
MIA
Hi Pat, Good to hear from you and see that everythnig is going well. I thought you were lost in a sandstorm as hadn't heard from you in a while. Stay safe and keep up the good work!