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Great White North

Canuck sailors may soldier on Afghan soil

2006-10-22

Sailors could be turned into infantry soldiers under a new plan the Canadian military is considering to keep fresh troops headed to Afghanistan. Military planners are looking at several possibilities to avoid sending soldiers to the country more than once.

We're all part of the same family. It doesn't matter if we're in the navy or the air force or the army we all signed on the dotted line. We're all here to defend our country, and that's what we're paid to do.

"We're all part of the same family," said Petty Officer (2nd Class) Derek Speirs, a navy cook based in Halifax who has done a peacekeeping stint in the Golan Heights and is willing to serve in Afghanistan. "It doesn't matter if we're in the navy or the air force or the army we all signed on the dotted line. We're all here to defend our country, and that's what we're paid to do."

Canada has promised to keep a force in Afghanistan until 2009; 42 Canadian soldiers have been killed there since 2002.

Posted by:Fred

#1 Not a bad attitude! There is no such thing as a "rear area" in the war against islamonazis. They'll attack anywhere they can, whether it's in Afghanistan, Iraq, Great Britain, Germany, or Cleveland. Every military member should receive at least SOME training as an infantryman, regardless of branch of service (and yes, that DOES include my old alma mater, the Air Force).

I wrote a training scenario where islamist terrorists attacked RAF Alconbury, in the UK. It was scheduled to be a three-day exercise. If it had been implemented and run as I set it up, we expected casualties to be in excess of 80%, because nobody expected to fight that kind of war and weren't trained to defend against it. Every scenario before had been a US/NATO against the Soviet Union. NOTHING I set up in that scenario was outside the capability of a well-trained cadre of 60 or so terrorists with the backing of either one of a half-dozen Middle East countries. We haven't changed that much to this day, unfortunately. One day it's going to rise up and bite us big-time.

Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-10-22 17:41

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