November 11, 2009

MASTER CPL. ROBERT BOTRILL/CANADIAN FORCES

Canadian combat engineers rig improvised explosive devices with C-4 and a detonation cord to dispose of them.

In Afghanistan, Canadian Forces engineers face the ultimate danger

Detection and detonation of bombs the most deadly part of the job

IAN HARVEY

correspondent

Construction is dangerous, dirty work at the best of times but in a war zone it’s deadly. Members of Canadian Forces combat engineering units know it all too well and they’ve paid a high price in their efforts to rebuild, secure and support their comrades-in-arms in Afghanistan.

Since 2002, of the 133 servicemen and women who have been killed there, 13 were with combat engineering regiments and all but two with the 5th Combat Engineers Unit. All were killed since 2006, and six alone died in the last six months.

More pointedly, 12 were killed by the notorious improvised explosive device, a handmade bomb usually buried on a road and then detonated when a troop carrier drives by or, worse, as soldiers on foot patrol walk by.

Ironically, the detection and detonation of IEDs is one of the prime tasks of combat engineers in the field — and clearly the most deadly.

It was as they unknowingly drove past an IED that Maj. Yannick Pépin, 36, of Warwick, Que. and Cpl. Jean-François Drouin, 31, of Beauport, Que. were killed Sept. 6 in the Dand District. Drouin had received a field promotion to corporal a month earlier because another IED had killed a colleague.

Most recently, Sapper Steven Marshall, 24, of Calgary, was killed Oct. 30 by an IED while leading a joint foot patrol with Afghan National Police. He had been in Afghanistan less than one week in what would have been a six-month tour.

Maj. Pépin was the highest ranking officer killed in Afghanistan to date and a popular soldier.

“He wasn’t an engineer though he was an officer,” says Capt. Michelle Whitty, who served with him and has just returned from a six-month assignment in Afghanistan.

SGT. FRANK HUDEC/CANADIAN FORCES

Sgt. Mike Wraight from Petawawa, Ont., a Canadian combat engineer from Task Force Kabul, carries an unexploded mortar round found on the road near Nazer Kala, Afghanistan.

“He’d worked his way up and had some diplomas from college and was planning to go back to university after his service.”

Despite the obvious risks, however, Capt. Whittey and her comrades press on. Like so many in the military, she is following in her father’s footsteps. He was also an engineer and a soldier.

In the field, the Royal Military College-educated civil engineer’s role is to make sure every mission, large or small, gets the resources they needed when they needed it. No patrol leaves the compound in Afghanistan without its contingent of engineers.

“Of course there’s a lot going on and everyone needs engineers,” she says. “It’s very volatile at any given time.”

Capt. Michel Larocque, an officer with the Civil-Military Cooperation team, takes advantage of the Afghan workers' lunch break to interview Jarle Rohein Hakonsen of Norway's NRK TV at the Arghandab River bridge construction site.

The combat engineers working with the troops also spend a lot of time making sure roads and bridges are stable, she says.

“You’ve got local bridges which were designed for light traffic, not heavy armoured vehicles, so we have to inspect and secure those,” she says.

“And while there are three large asphalt roads, the roads in the villages are basically compacted soil — a very tight clay — and in some cases the roads are more like footpaths.” Part of the job is to also check the roads for drainage and ensure they don’t collapse, especially in the rainy season.

FRAME GRAB: CPL. RON DUCHESNE/CANADIAN FORCES

2 Combat Engineer Regiment from CFB Petawawa destroyed an old bridge using 440 blocks (250kg) of C-4 plastic explosive as part of a training exercise involving 250 soldiers from 2CER.

When regular patrol encounter IEDs, the protocol is to call in a special team which then destroys it, often using a mobile robotic device similar to one used by police forces to investigate suspicious packages.

“Sometimes though there’s no time and they have to do it on the spot,” she says.

The IED are dangerous because they can be either remotely controlled or have a pressure switch. Sometimes insurgents lie in wait more than a kilometre away and remotely trigger the device.

“We get good at knowing where they’re likely to be, but then they watch us and change their strategy.”

A secondary team of senior engineers and junior officers called the Tactical Exploitation Team also mount a forensic investigation of each IED blast site seeking ways of countering what has been a deadly and effective strategy for the Taliban forces.

The overarching goal is to understand the bomb-placing network from suppliers to financiers, builders, those placing them and the facilitators who keep the process moving.

Engineers on base are also always busy building observation posts and bunkers which are made using a metal fence system lined with canvas that is then filled with aggregate and dirt to protect against incoming bullets or shrapnel.

“We’ve got carpenters, electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators all that,” says Whittey, noting a day’s work could mean erecting a 1.5 km perimeter fence, installing latrines, operations centres and sleeping quarters for a forward post. The military doesn’t move anywhere without the engineers.

Whittey and her colleagues were among the 300-odd Canadian Armed Forces engineers assigned to Afghanistan, with about half working on infrastructure projects, building irrigation channels, refurbishing the Dahla Dam, schools, bridges, roads and other vital infrastructure.

“They are the best, the brightest,” says Lt. Col. (ret) Peter N Dawe, former commanding officer of the 5th combat regiment which is based in Valcartier, Que. He now is director of the alumni association at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.

He knows the pain of loss. His own son, one of three serving with the Canadian Forces, was killed. Captain Matthew Johnathan Dawe, 27, of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry died July 4, 2007 when an IED exploded.

The men and women who join the ranks of the engineering regiments not only have to be good infantry soldiers, but also have to develop the skills necessary to support the troops in the field.

“They are all demolition experts, they are also expert in mine warfare, both laying and clearing mines,” he says. Those accepted to RMC study engineering, either mechanical or civil to prepare them to lead a combat engineering unit.

Times may change, but the military’s reliance on engineers, however, has remained constant.

“If you look up engineer in the Oxford English Dictionary, you’ll see one of the oldest definitions is that of a military resource,” notes Lt. Col. Daniel MacIssac, currently commanding the 5th combat regiment.

“That’s because the armies were the only ones who needed engineers, to build fortresses, catapults and the other resources of war.”

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