by Ray Wiss
So far, this has all the makings of a spectacular and uniquely military screwup. It turns out to have been an inspired choice. First, Captain Pelletier-Bédard proved to be a very quick study. Building on his basic combat arms training, he quickly sharpened his infantry tactics and is an effective mentor in this regard. Even the veteran infantry officers assigned here respect him and consider him one of their own. But what is far more important is that he has been able to connect with his Afghan charges. How has he been able to achieve this? “My interactions with Afghan civilians were what most helped me understand the Afghan soldiers,” he told me.
Captain Pelletier-Bédard did not intentionally seek out more contact with the local civilians. It happened naturally because the Afghan soldiers, even the ones who are Dari-speaking northerners, will regularly interact on a social basis with the villagers they encounter. They will even share a cup of tea with these people, knowing full well that many of them support the Taliban.
Captain Manuel Pelletier-Bédard
Captain Pelletier-Bédard has benefited professionally from these interactions. He says that his contacts with Afghan civilians have enabled him to be more patient with the Afghan soldiers. It is one thing to know that most of these soldiers are illiterate and innumerate. It is quite another thing to be regularly confronted with villagers who use the word “many” to describe any number higher than two.
I asked Captain Pelletier-Bédard the obvious question: did he think his mentorees had progressed satisfactorily over the four months he had been in Afghanistan? He replied that they had progressed very little . . . because they were already competent when he got here. In a recent evaluation exercise, his company was able to function almost independently.
Captain Pelletier-Bédard has therefore not done much “M,” or mentoring. Rather, he has focused on the “L” and provided liaison between the ANA and the Coalition forces. Primarily, this has meant coordinating artillery attacks and air strikes against the enemy when his troops have been in contact. But mentor or not, Captain Pelletier-Bédard is first and foremost an officer in the CF. His responsibility towards the men he commands (or, in this case, he advises) is sacrosanct. Here’s an anecdote that shows how far he is willing to go to keep faith with that creed.
Captain Pelletier-Bédard’s ANA company was involved in the recent operation around Salavat Ghar. They got into heavy contact and were taking a lot of fire from two sides. An air strike was called in on Taliban positions four hundred metres away.
The bombs that were going to be dropped weigh five hundred pounds. They are highly accurate but they have a gigantic kill radius. It is essential to pull all friendly forces back a few hundred metres from the intended target. When he tried to do so, Captain Pelletier-Bédard realized that radio contact had been lost with a section of Afghan soldiers who had pressed forward to get closer to the enemy. This squad was now within one hundred metres of the Taliban positions, well beyond “danger close.”
The three hundred metres of ground between Captain Pelletier-Bédard and the Afghan squad was a flat sandy field devoid of any cover. Despite this, he did not hesitate: he headed across the open area to warn his men to take cover. He could not have been going very fast. He was wearing his frag vest and tac vest, he was carrying a heavy pack on his back and a rifle in his hands. This is rather more than I was carrying on my combat patrol ten days ago. I am sure Captain Pelletier-Bédard was giving it all he had, but I doubt he achieved anything faster than a slow jog. As soon as he broke cover the insurgents focused their fire on him. As he crossed the open field, bullets were coming from his left and his right, flying by his head and kicking up dirt at his feet. Miraculously, he made it across that field unhurt and got his men behind a mud brick wall in time to shield them from the air strike.
That would have been enough for any soldier, but Captain Pelletier-Bédard was just getting warmed up. Once the air strike was over, he went running back across the same open ground. One of the soldiers he had left behind had been shot in the leg. He had to get back as quickly as possible to give him first aid and to call in a medevac. There were fewer bullets flying past him on the return leg (courtesy the air strike), but he was still dancing with death every step of the way. As he made his way back, he had to cross a deep ditch. He had no recollection of having crossed it on the way over. Combat will do that to people: the brain excludes what it does not deem essential to survival.
Canadian soldier in action with ANA troops
(© Louie Palu/ZUMA Press, reprinted with permission)
Captain Pelletier-Bédard describes all this in much the same way I would describe an unusual case in the emergency department: momentarily intense, but nothing more than another day on the job.
AUGUST 14 | Mentorees, Part 1
I said earlier that Captain Pelletier-Bédard felt that his ANA “mentorees” had not required much guidance from him, since they were already functioning at a high level. I met two of the people most responsible for this state of affairs at lunch today. I had gone to introduce myself, somewhat belatedly, to the commanders of the ANA unit based here.
Captain Ghioz and First Lieutenant Nooragha
The man on the left in the accompanying photograph is Captain Ghioz, the ANA company commander. Beside him is the company second-in-command, First Lieutenant Nooragha. Like many Afghans, they have a single name. Between them, they have nearly fifty years of military experience. This explains, at least in part, the competence of their soldiers.
The way they acquired their knowledge of war is remarkable. As with “the brothers” (see the July 29 entry), the story of these two men sums up the tragedy of the past generation and the hope of the next one.
These men began fighting in the late 1980s. Captain Ghioz is a member of the Tajik tribe, which dominates northern Afghanistan. He joined the mujahedeen resistance to fight the Russian occupation. During the civil war that followed, he remained loyal to his Tajik resistance group. He continued to do so after the Taliban took over. Since 2002, he has served with the ANA.
First Lieutenant Nooragha’s story could not be more different. He began his military career during the Russian occupation as an instructor at the military college in Kabul in the late 1980s. Early in our conversation, he told me that Canadian mentorship compares favourably with what he experienced under the Russians. We assign an officer and two to four soldiers to a company of 150 men; the Russians had one officer advising four thousand Afghans.
When the Russians left in 1989, they left behind a puppet communist government. First Lieutenant Nooragha continued to teach at the military college, which seems logical. When the mujahedeen took Kabul in 1992, they kept him on staff. That was astounding enough; but, incredibly, the Taliban did the same thing when they came to town in 1996. First Lieutenant Nooragha laughs about this now, saying that he had to grow his beard and wear a turban. Otherwise, he had no problems training Taliban recruits.
So what did he do in 2001 when the Coalition invaded? He shaved his beard, lost the turban and reapplied for his old job. Which he got!
To recap: in fifteen years, this guy trained soldiers for the Russians, the Afghan communists, the Islamic mujahedeen, the extremist Taliban and the U.S.-backed Coalition. He is now in a combat infantry company. He spontaneously mentioned that he does not enjoy fighting; he would much rather be back in Kabul in a classroom. But he is loyal to whatever government is in power. They have sent him here, and so he has come.
Anyone reading this description of First Lieutenant Nooragha’s employment record could conclude that he is an amoral mercenary. Having met the man and spoken to him at length, I am convinced that is not the case. He sees himself as a loyal Afghan who follows the orders of the central government. In a country as chaotic as this one, he has chosen to define this as “whoever runs things in Kabul.” For much of Afghanistan’s history (as in many other places in the developing world) having a group capable of running the capital is as close as the country has ever gotten to having a na
tional government. These governments come to power by the bullet instead of the ballot, but they are the government nonetheless. I could see the logic of his position.
I asked him what he would do if the Taliban returned to power. He smiled, laughed and said that he would go back to working for them. Captain Ghioz, on the other hand, made it perfectly clear that he would not. The Taliban were his sworn enemies. He would like nothing better than to kill every last one of them himself. You get the sense that a devastating personal loss underlies the sentiment. It would have been much too forward to ask him to confirm that at our first meeting. Perhaps I will ask him before I go.
And yet . . .
Even Captain Ghioz would be ready to accept members of the Taliban into the government, provided they renounced violence. President Karzai has made this overture to the Taliban on at least three occasions. The Taliban have refused each time.
BREAKING BREAD WITH THE AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY
The meal we shared consisted of a large dish of delicious rice. The taste suggested that it had been cooked in a kind of beef broth, and there was more than I could finish. The rice was garnished with a couple of pieces of boiled potato and a piece of mutton. This last was a big bone from which one could tear pieces of meat. There were soft drinks, bottled water and a white yogurt drink. A large piece of flatbread, similar to Indian naan bread, rounded out the feast. I asked the Afghans what they called it. They call it naan.
We sat cross-legged on the floor. Captain Ghioz ate his rice with a spoon while First Lieutenant Nooragha ate with his hands. Although it was not truly sticky rice, it was possible to make a ball of the stuff that held together reasonably well on the way to one’s mouth. I chose to emulate First Lieutenant Nooragha.
As superb as the meal was, the story of its preparation was troubling. Even though we are allies, the Afghan soldiers do not eat with the Canadians. No other element influences a soldier’s morale as much as the food he receives. Afghans and Canadians have grown up with different foodstuffs, and we want to provide both groups with food that is not only nutritious and tasty, but also familiar. The last thing we want to do is force the Afghans to eat side-by-side with the Canadians.
While I understand the reasons our allies eat separately from us, I cannot understand why the ANA can be provided with twenty-first-century weapons but only nineteenth-century kitchens. The building itself is a ramshackle structure, food preparation is done right on the ground and cooking is done over a wood fire in a mud-brick fireplace.
The ANA kitchen
The ANA cook
The worst thing about the way the ANA feeds its soldiers is the daily food-buying trip to the market in Bazaar-e-Panjwayi, the city right beside FOB Ma’Sum Ghar. That’s right: daily, and in unarmoured pickup trucks. The Afghans have no refrigeration facilities on the FOB. This forces some of them to risk their lives every morning to purchase the food the company will eat that day. Over the past three years, many Afghan soldiers have been wounded on these grocery shopping trips. Three of them have been killed.
Thankfully, things are about to improve. The Americans have already mapped out where modern kitchen facilities, including refrigeration units, will be built for the ANA. A contractor has been hired, and construction should start within a couple of weeks. But it is disturbing that this did not happen months or even years ago.
AUGUST 15, MORNING | Mentorees, Part 2
In the June 21 entry, I explained that modern armies do most of their killing with artillery. For the ANA to be able to rout the Taliban without our help, it will have to master this skill.
It is impossible, in an insurgency war such as this, to always have numerical superiority over the enemy. The insurgents strike when it suits them, and it suits them only when they are able to concentrate their forces so that they have at least parity with the government forces. Without artillery to back them up, government forces would always be in a fair fight. That is the last thing you want in a war: you always want to be in an unfair fight, one in which you have a crushing superiority.
Canada is helping the ANA develop this kind of firepower superiority: there is a battery of ANA artillery here, with Canadian mentors (a separate OMLT team from that of Captain Pelletier-Bédard’s). These guys are nowhere near being ready to go into combat, but at least the process has begun.
The beginnings of leadership
I went to watch them train this morning. I chose this day because the Canadians were not going to be present, and I wanted to see what the Afghans could do on their own. The drill they were doing involved getting their cannons “into action,” that is, ready to fire. In a combat situation, a gun crew must be able to bring their cannon into action in a matter of seconds. This is something gun crews will rehearse over and over again, until it is instinctive.
After the various crews had been practising for about an hour, a senior NCO arrived. He spoke to the men for a few minutes, and I could tell he was setting up some kind of competition between them. The guns were all placed into their “out of action” position (that is, ready to be moved to a new location). Another command was shouted, and all the crews rushed forward to put their guns into action as quickly as possible.
Even someone who knew nothing about artillery would have been able to appreciate that the gun crews were . . . moderately competent. Occasionally an individual would move in the wrong direction and have to be quickly redirected by the gun crew leader. But for someone with a military eye, there was something far more important to see. It is hinted at in the above photograph.
The first thing a soldier notices is consistency of dress. When I was here on Roto 4, the ANA was still dressed in a hodgepodge of different uniforms. Here, the troops are all wearing the same clothing (with some minor variability in the headdress).
There is something else, something far more important. Did you notice the shadows? The gun crew leader is facing into the sun so that his men do not have to squint as they listen to him. He is putting their welfare above his own. This is an elementary leadership technique— elementary, once you have been told about it.
It is that leadership which is the more impressive aspect of what I saw this morning. It was obvious that the gun crew leaders were confident and capable in their jobs. There was no hesitation in their voices; they spoke with assurance. Even more notably, they spoke in warm and encouraging tones. As they ran their crews through their drills, they were enthusiastic. If one of their men made a mistake, they gently corrected him.
Armies are a reflection of the society from which they are drawn. I have spent a fair amount of time studying the armies of the developing world up close. These armies reflect the struggle for survival that defines life in these countries: discipline is often harsh, even brutal. Any action, once explained, must be performed to perfection. If it is not, the troops receive some kind of punishment, often a beating.
On Roto 4, the Afghan leaders would occasionally throw rocks at their underperforming soldiers. One can imagine the long-term effects of that kind of behaviour on morale. If the ANA is going to meet and defeat the Taliban on its own, its leaders will have to learn to motivate their men the same way Major Arsenault, Major Jourdain and Warrant Officer Comeau do.
AUGUST 15, AFTERNOON | Mentorees, Part 3
The most recent entries may have given you the impression that all the teaching that goes on here is done by Canadians. Allow me to correct that misconception.
What we have to teach: 300-115= ? 454+465 = ?
Where we have to teach it
After the morning training is over, things pretty much shut down for the Afghan army. Many of the Canadian trainers struggle with this. Like many Westerners, they are accustomed to an eight-to-five workday. The “siesta time” concept strikes many Canadians as inefficient and lazy.
Most people in the developing world see things differently. They will maximize their efforts in the morning and late afternoon/early evening to avoid the brutal midday heat. This is the case here. As soon as the t
roops had finished eating lunch, they all collapsed into their bunks.
The training day was far from over, however. At 1600, the Afghan soldiers remaining in the camp assembled in a burned-out building. There were tables for half of them and chairs or benches for perhaps two-thirds. For the next couple of hours, one of their senior NCOs taught them . . . addition and subtraction.
Anyone who thinks the Afghans are not doing enough to improve their lot in life should spend an hour watching the enthusiasm with which grown men participate in these classes.
AUGUST 16, AFTERNOON | Just another day . . .
For the past three days Major Jourdain has been leading the combat team on an operation into the area of Chalgowr, a village east of here. The objective of the mission was to further disrupt insurgent activity before the elections. There was rather more enemy activity than anticipated, and the combat team got into a couple of prolonged firefights. None of our people got so much as a scratch during these skirmishes, and we inflicted some lethal casualties on the Taliban.
As the combat team was returning to the FOB, the lead vehicle was attacked by a remote-controlled IED. The blast rocked the vehicle slightly, leaving two members of the crew with a very mild neck strain that I treated with cold packs and a couple of days of anti-inflammatories. The trigger man was not nearly so lucky. Major Jourdain, in a vehicle following close behind, figured out almost instantly where he had been hiding. He brought his personal machine gun and his vehicle’s 25 mm cannon to bear and opened fire. The Taliban soldier realized he been detected and tried to make a run for it. The Canadians’ gunfire knocked him down within seconds. He did not move after that.