"Reveille, reveille," a corporal chants as soldiers struggle into grimy boots and smelly uniforms so caked with dried sweat they feel like cardboard.
Without stopping to eat, they drive to their assembly point to prepare for a sweep of dangerous villages and farms west of Kandahar.
It will be their fourth day in a row of patrolling an area where Canadian soldiers have been killed and wounded in firefights over the past six weeks.
"Men, hundreds of insurgent fighters are coming into this area.
Your efforts are keeping them on the move and we are not going to let up," says Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, commander of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry battle group.
The effort is part of Operation Mountain Thrust, an international coalition plan to root out Taliban from their strongholds in southern Afghanistan that was officially announced last week. For the Canadians, the operation has been underway for more than a month.
Hope, a lean, driven man with piercing blue eyes, sounds like a high school football coach giving a pep talk. But this is no game.
Officers gather around to listen to his exhortations as roosters crow in the nearby village and the hot sun begins to burn off the morning mist.
"I know it's hard and it's hot and dirty but we have to do it," Hope says. "I'll keep pushing you out there because it is the only way we will win." Maps in hand, the leaders drift back to the soldiers of their platoons who are preparing for battle.
Weapons are checked and wiped clean. Ammunition magazines are stuffed into pockets. Body armour is adjusted.
Medics cajole troops to drink and carry plenty of water.
Shouldering more than 30 kilograms of gear in 45 C heat can be as deadly as a Taliban ambush or a roadside bomb.
A blunter version of Hope's orders is then delivered to the privates and corporals.
"We are going to sweep through Zangadin to kill or capture Taliban," says Brad Worth, a veteran sergeant from Toronto.
The patrol begins near where Capt. Nichola Goddard was killed last month by insurgents.
Soldiers emerge from the protective armour of their vehicles and slowly move through the village and farms, rifles and machine-guns at the ready. Using hand signals, they stop and silently drop to a crouch, scanning homes and the horizon for trouble through the scopes of their weapons.
The soldiers of 9 Platoon glide deeper in a deserted village in the searing afternoon heat. They begin to search each house, kicking in every locked door looking for insurgents.
"Three guys for each house, door by door," shouts a sergeant as the troops started bashing their way inside.
Soon a young Afghan man and a village elder emerge from a doorway.
Lieut. Craig Alcock, the platoon commander, calls for his interpreter.
The men sit under a tree as he questions the nervous villagers.
They tell the Canadians the Taliban were here but fled the previous night.
Alcock tells the villagers the area is controlled by the Afghan government and urges them not to support the insurgents. "We are going to aggressively pursue any Taliban and we are going to kill them," Alcock says.
"Any people that are found to have been helping the Taliban will have their houses seized by the government, their property seized.
They will be left with nothing."
PUBLICATION: WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
DATE: 2006.06.19
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