QW - ARTILLERY'S TWO PEOPLE

"Artillerymen believe the world consist of two types of people; other Artillerymen and targets."

- Unknown

WE MAY NOT WIN AT THE OLYMPICS BUT WE TOOK GOLD IN AFGHANISTAN

Canadians beat Americans in Afghan ball hockey game!!

GO TEAM, GO!!!

QW - WOMEN SOLDIERS

"We have women in the military, but they don’t put us in the front lines. They don’t know if we can fight, if we can kill. I think we can. All the General has to do is walk over to the women and say 'you see that enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms'"

- Elayne Boosler - comedian

Corporal Joshua Caleb Baker

Age: 24
Hometown: Edmonton, Alta
Unit: Loyal Edmonton Regiment 4th Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
Deceased: February 12, 2010
Incident: Training Accident, Kandahar City, Afghanistan

Contact Charlie: The Canadian Army, The Taliban and the Battle that Saved Afghanistan

Description:

From May through August 2006, Canadian soldiers fought a running battle against Taliban insurgents in the Panjwayi district southwest of Kandahar, the Afghan provincial capital. In the most intense fighting the Canadian army has conducted since the Korean War, the Taliban offensive was defeated, checking their goal to break NATO’s tenuous resolve by occupying Kandahar, however briefly. Contact Charlie, by National Post reporter and army reserve officer Chris Wattie, recounts the Battle of Panjwayi, focusing on Charlie Company of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, with whom Wattie was embedded for eight weeks in early 2006. Wattie’s book is an extraordinarily intense minute-by-minute account of the major engagements from the point of view of the Canadian soldiers who fought them. We tread familiar, but nonetheless inspiring, ground reading about courage, fear, determination, frustration, sorrow, and professionalism. Although clearly a battle narrative, Contact Charlie contains little history or true reportage, and is unrepentantly biased. Add in the breathless tone, and the book is, ultimately, a tribute to those Canadians who have chosen to fight on behalf of Canada. Even a tribute, though, requires some sense of legitimacy, and Contact Charlie often strains credibility. The lack of annotation, and the apparently perfect recall of the soldiers, suggests that Wattie has amplified the tone, if not the facts, of the battle for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, the book will inform those interested about combat in Afghanistan, and about the lives and sacrifices of our soldiers. But between the lines of heroism and professionalism is an uncomfortable truth: two years later, the Taliban are attacking Kandahar, NATO resolve is still tenuous, and Canadian soldiers are still fighting and dying in Panjwayi.

Reviews:

“In the summer of 2006 the Taliban were poised to take back their Jerusalem, Kandahar City. They didn’t figure on 1 PPCLI. Chris Wattie’s outstanding effort lets us eavesdrop on the intense battles that saved the city, the country and NATO itself, and should make every Canadian proud of our country’s sacrifice in the name of freedom.”

—Lewis MacKenzie, Major-General (ret’d), Commanding Officer 1PPCLI, 1977–1979

“Way beyond the perceived access of embedded reporting, Contact Charlie brings the boots on the ground view in Afghanistan closer than anyone outside the Canadian Forces has ever seen it. Wattie’s account of the battle for the Panjwayi is reminiscent of war correspondence from such giants as Ross Munro, Matthew Halton or Bill Boss—as close to the sharp end as one can get."

—Ted Barris, journalist and author

"Many journalists try to write about military life but few possess the ability, eloquence and sheer grasp of the fleshy reality of war and soldiering that Wattie has in obvious abundance. This is reporting, military history and political analysis of the first order. Splendid and memorable—a book that should carve an honoured place in Canadian literature."

—Michael Coren, Sun Media columnist, television and radio host and best-selling author

“ Contact Charlie fills in the blanks between Canada’s military objective in Afghanistan and the dizzying transformation on the ground. It is a thorough, lucid account of how one company’s tour of duty altered so many lives. Like a magnet, Charlie Company is drawn into a fight behind every wall and Chris Wattie captures it all in meticulous detail. Each time they suit up for a ‘routine’ patrol, there is a sense of dread for what looms. Contact Charlie will survive as a testament to the soldiers who never came back and the friends who will never forget them.”

—Lisa LaFlamme, National Affairs Correspondent, CTV News

QW - CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

“Cannon to the right of them,

Cannon to the left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volley'ed and thundered.”

- The Charge of the Light Brigade, during the battle of Balaclava in October 1854

PW - In Support of Our Troops and Their Families

Though winter comes knocking on my doorstep

My heart is warmed by those

Whose selfless efforts go unheard

Except to the ears of those who care

Those who watch the news in fear

And feel it’s mighty cost

They search engulf all the news

For they’re the families of those who serve

Who’ve stepped forth and also could be lost

My heart rides this torrent too

For they are now friends of mine

Though they know not I’m standing near

Near throughout this precious time

With prayers to quell their fears

My tears have flown

My mind in thought, pen run out of ink

From jotting down how much I care

For those for whom I think

I wish the Lord would intervene

And cause that peaceful end

There is no need for a loser found

Let all be winners in this stand

For when greater minds prevail and see

A better world is what is found

Awe but this is just a simple dream

Imaginations simplistic ground

In a world that is far to complex

For a dream that could not last

For each day a barbarian thrives anew

And drives the future to the past

Tis why our heroes ride this charge

Across a great wide world divide

To stand and stop a dangerous foe

When our values and theirs collide

By: Roger Borchert