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Canadian engineers teach demolition basics to new Afghan National Army unit
 CAMP HERO, Afghanistan - In a country where danger constantly lurks underfoot and around every corner, members of the Afghan National Army are getting a crash course from Canadian soldiers in the delicate art of handling high explosives. Warrant Officer Wade Osmond makes crude hand gestures to a young Afghan recruit who's learning the basics of the trade at Camp Hero, the Afghan National Army base just beyond the confines of Kandahar Airfield. "Tell him to prepare his M-16 igniter. Just tell him - remember, you can squeeze this together to make it easier to come apart," Osmond, of 2 Combat Engineer Regiment, based in Petawawa, Ont., says to an interpreter. "This soldier has done it once before already, so this is reconfirmation of his training so he already understands exactly what I'm saying to him. You're going to pull - remember, on the word 'fire,' it's 1, 2, 3 on fire." Three recruits at a time learn how to set a charge on a half-kilogram of C-4 plastic explosive, all under the watchful tutelage of their Canadian trainers, including Osmond and Chief Warrant Officer Craig Grant. A series of three loud explosions, accompanied by a mushroom-shaped cloud of dust, brings cheers and laughs from the participants. Blowing stuff up is fun, after all. The Afghan engineers were taking part in a basic demolitions range designed to allow them to better support their fellow Afghan National Army soldiers, said Capt. Jeff Allen, who oversees the training. "It's part of a three-week skills camp that we're doing with the ANA sappers to bring their technical proficiency up to a level in which they can be more useful in deployed operations," Allen said. "Basic demolitions won't give them the skills to use demolitions as an effective tool such as breaching or explosive digging, but it will also give them the knowledge and recognition of components and the safety that goes along with it." There are 45,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army. The Canadian team is mentoring 3,000 of them, and the United States and the Netherlands are also involved in training - a vital element of NATO's exit strategy for Afghanistan. Mentoring in the past has involved combat troops, police and auxiliary police. Now it is the engineers' turn. No one questions the bravery of the Afghan soldiers, Osmond said. It's their skills that need refinement. "These soldiers are braver than you could imagine," he said. "To see them go down a road with a mine detector, (which) they weren't sure they could use at that time, takes a lot of courage." Nonetheless, there have been challenges, not the least of which has been the fact most of the Afghan soldiers are poorly educated. "I can translate the information, but they're not necessarily going to be able to read," Osmond said. "One of the other hurdles is they can't read a measuring tape, which is important to this but also important to the rest of the training we are doing, which is construction." Confidence, however, is one thing the 30 trainees didn't seem to lack. "It's easy," Naseer Ahmad, 21, said with a smile. Working with explosives doesn't bother or frightens him, he added. "Why would I come in here if I was afraid?" That bravado can be an issue, Allen acknowledged. "They're surprisingly confident - sometimes too confident," he chuckled. "We don't have to be shy about saying, 'Hey, you guys are weak in this area,' but we don't talk down to these guys. These guys have been fighting since they were kids." The mentoring is part of the NATO goal of training the Afghan security forces to the point that they can look after their own country. "It's coming along really well," Allen said. "If these guys can enable their fellow Afghan National Army guys to move around the battlefield and defeat the enemy, then they're an enabler - they're a bonus." Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-11-10 |
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