Description:
While the Maritimes represent only about seven percent of Canada’s population, approximately 35 percent of the troops stationed in Afghantistan call one of the Maritime provinces home. On Assignment in Afghanistan includes dramatic and moving photographs of the Maritime soldier’s experience serving in the war, photographs that capture life on the base, work and play, and staying connected to home. After one week of survival training in Virginia, two Chronicle Herald staff members, photographer Christian Laforce and reporter Chris Lambie, travelled to Afghanistan where they were embedded with troops at the Canadian Base that surrounds the airport in Khandahar. They spent one month meeting and interacting with hundreds of soldiers from the Maritimes, most of whom arrived in Khandahar via the base at Gagetown, New Brunswick. The journalists were privy to the day-to-day lives of the soldiers, living life on the base as they do and going with them on patrols.
The book will reprint the best articles and reports from the Chronicle Herald as well as all-new material for those of us back home attempting to understand the challenges troops face in their work as soldiers, especially so far from home. Accounts from the soldiers themselves, as well as stories about the support they receive from family, friends and strangers across the Maritimes are included. For everyone who knows someone serving overseas, for everyone who wants to understand how the troops cope with the tragedies and the politics of war, On Assignment in Afghanistan will provide a firsthand account of what life is like for Maritimers at war.
