Sgt.'s Miok & Taylor, Cpl. McCormack, Pte. Chidley and Michelle Lang-Dec 30/09

[leroi]

On Sunday two escort soldiers in tan combat fatigues, one male and one female, in the freezing cold and in the dark, stopped and greeted the Honour Guard and every supporter including civilian--down one side of Grenville and back up the other side. It wasn't clear at times whether they were supporting the crowd or the crowd was supporting them--maybe a bit of both. They must have been freezing cold but the heart-wrenching sight of them braving the cold and the knowledge of their imminent return to Afghanistan and the recent losses moved many in the crowd to tears ...

From the "Corner of the Courageous" at Yonge and Grenville here's a short clip of the two being applauded after wards:

http://www.youtube.com/user/forzaferrarif1fan#p/a/u/0/s0RE33rIXBg

 

[The Bread Guy]

This, from the Canadian Press, shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.:

A memorial for the first Canadian reporter killed in Afghanistan will now greet every journalist working out of the Kandahar military base.

The military has unveiled a plaque for Michelle Lang, the Calgary Herald reporter killed alongside four Canadian soldiers in late December when their armoured vehicle struck a huge roadside bomb.

The simple plague is affixed to a wooden post between the two media tents in the Canadian compound of Kandahar Airfield.

Beneath a photo of Lang is the inscription "In memory of Michelle Lang, journalist, Calgary Herald & Canwest, KIA 4:00 p.m. 30 Dec 2009, Kandahar city."

Lang, 34, was killed only two weeks into her first assignment as a war correspondent for the Herald and Canwest News Service.

Also killed in that blast were Sgt. George Miok, 28; Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28; Cpl. Zachery McCormack, 21; and Pte. Garrett Chidley, 21.

 

[The Bread Guy]

One year later, a bit more of the story, from the Canadian Press:

Reluctantly, silently, Sgt. Jimmy Collins lifts his sleeve.

There — tattooed on the inside of his wrist, along with images of a palm tree and a maple leaf — are the initials of five fellow Canadians, victims of a single wrenching instant of violence on a muddy road in Afghanistan one year ago.

"Kandahar

Always remember

GC-GM-ZM-KT-ML"

Garrett Chidley. George Miok. Zachery McCormack. Kirk Taylor. Michelle Lang.

It's a private epitaph born of nanoseconds of death and destruction on Dec. 30, 2009, that stretch on for the survivors, eyewitnesses and families left behind, leaving in their wake a living legacy of broken bodies and shattered hearts.

The term "improvised explosive device" has entered the Canadian lexicon as a result of the mission in Afghanistan. Of the 154 Canadian soldiers to die as part of the mission to date, 94 were killed by IEDs, a cheap, jerry-rigged menace that has evolved into one of the most vexing and insidious weapons since the invention of the landmine.

Some 611 other Canadian soldiers have been injured in combat, new government figures show. But precious little is known about many of the wounded because the Department of National Defence chose in late 2008 to stop publicizing battlefield injuries, ostensibly in a stepped-up effort to deny mission intelligence to the Taliban.

It's just one of the many restrictions that bind reporters who embed with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. Often, the military brands the most seemingly innocent detail as integral to operational security, which means an embedded journalist who discloses it faces the threat of expulsion from the base.

As a result, many Canadians have formed a sanitized view of the mission's true consequences. When they do see evidence of war's cruel truths, it is through a prism of romanticism: the skirl of bagpipes among crisp salutes as a flag-draped casket is carried to or from a military transport, or the teary legions of flag-waving supporters who pay tribute to the fallen along the Highway of Heroes.

This story is different. Assembled from dozens of interviews conducted on Canadian soil, far from the army's embed restrictions, it is the story — largely untold before now — of a single bomb and the havoc it wreaked on the five lives it took, the five others it barely spared, and the families that were left to piece their lives back together ....

More on link

 

[Dissident]

Yee was getting a haircut earlier that day when he overheard a Canadian Forces officer talking about the tragedy. The inexperienced reservists had brought the disaster on themselves by failing to check the road properly, the officer suggested.

:rage:

 

[vonGarvin]

Yee was getting a haircut earlier that day when he overheard a Canadian Forces officer talking about the tragedy. The inexperienced reservists had brought the disaster on themselves by failing to check the road properly, the officer suggested.

:rage:

I'm not sure if the "officer" was suggesting that the reservists were inexperienced (which we all are to start things out), but consider this from the article:

I broke one of my major rules
"It was my call to turn around and drive back down that road," he said. ": never take same way out as in."
* * *
Collins watches from one of the two rear hatches in the lead vehicle and immediately recognizes the terrain. He's heard the stories of convoys hitting IEDs on roads that have been cleared just hours earlier.
As they lurch down the road at about 30 kilometres an hour, he gets on the radio and suggests to Miok, whose head is poking out from Charlie's hatch trailing about 20 metres behind, that they stop and perform another search.
Miok, feigning exasperation, responds with an expletive. Collins looks at his close friend and good-naturedly gives him the finger. Miok returns the gesture.

In the next instant, the affable 28-year-old schoolteacher from Edmonton is dead.

If they died because they made a mistake, then nothing remarkable happened that day in terms of making mistakes: some of us are just lucky enough to have "gotten away with it" (including yours truly)

 

[Task]

:rage:

I'm not sure if the "officer" was suggesting that the reservists were inexperienced (which we all are to start things out), but consider this from the article:
If they died because they made a mistake, then nothing remarkable happened that day in terms of making mistakes: some of us are just lucky enough to have "gotten away with it" (including yours truly)

I agree that we all make mistakes and sometimes we get away wit it.
I do not agree that anyone, particularly an Officer should be giving his/her negative opinions in a barber shop. 
That should be dealt with in the AAR and subsequent investigations.

How did that Officer in any way help the situation...?

 

[GAP]

Never Return the Way you Came is a mantra beat into most/all forces.....for good reason.

Situations/enemy tacticians sometimes dictate that's what you do, and in the crash course of 5 second decision making, sometimes you get stung.

Most who have experienced TIC's have seen maneuvers that try to funnel you/them and a lot of the time, probably most, are able to avoid them. They are not always obvious, nor are they always deadly.

my  :2c:

 

[vonGarvin]

I agree that we all make mistakes and sometimes we get away wit it.
I do not agree that anyone, particularly an Officer should be giving his/her negative opinions in a barber shop. 
That should be dealt with in the AAR and subsequent investigations.

How did that Officer in any way help the situation...?

I agree that the settings, etc, in which the officer gave his/her negative opinions in a barber shop isn't the time/place.  And it helps the square root of bugger all. 

 

[JSR OP]

There's one memory from tour I don't like to remember.  No one likes to do ramp ceremonies, but having one on New Years Day made it just that more worse. 

RIP Troops and Ms Lang.

 

[BDTyre]

:rage:

No kidding. I know two of thee injured - the road was checked. I know the route and the consensus (amongst ourselves anyway) was it was only a matter of time - and this definitely wasn't their first attempt. On that route, it would be very easy to miss stuff, especially with the winter weather.

 

[dapaterson]

Never Return the Way you Came is a mantra beat into most/all forces.....for good reason.

Situations/enemy tacticians sometimes dictate that's what you do, and in the crash course of 5 second decision making, sometimes you get stung.

Most who have experienced TIC's have seen maneuvers that try to funnel you/them and a lot of the time, probably most, are able to avoid them. They are not always obvious, nor are they always deadly.

my  :2c:

Second guessing someone else's decisions is always easy - especially from a cubicle somewhere or a barber shop inside the wire.  From the article, it appears that option 1 was to remain stuck indefinitely in a traffic jam, providing a wonderful target; option 2 was to go back on the same route.  Neither option was good.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Twenty pictures, courtesy of the Globe and Mail, of some of the survivors here.

 

[dapaterson]

There's a live online chat right now (13h00 EST - 14h00 EST) with the author of the piece:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/ied-tragedy/an-afghan-tragedy-and-its-wide-impact/article1852584/

 

[jollyjacktar]

One year on and you are all still missed here at home by all Canadians.  I know I won't forget any of you.  :yellow:

 

[Brutus]

I knew Zach to be a very outgoing, fit, jovial soldier. We were on course together and it was obvious from the outset he was very strong mentally and would make an excellent Infantry soldier. He was easily the smallest in stature on my course but his personality was huge.

One year later, I can still say I think of him often and he is missed.

 

[AndyRad]

This was in my local paper a couple days ago, 30 Dec 10
Thoughts on this piece, i don't understand which message that the CP is trying so establish:

One year after the bomb went off
By The Canadian Press

Published: December 30, 2010 5:00 AM
Reluctantly, silently, Sgt. Jimmy Collins lifts his sleeve.

There — tattooed on the inside of his wrist, along with images of a palm tree and a maple leaf — are the initials of five fellow Canadians, victims of a single wrenching instant of violence on a muddy road in Afghanistan one year ago.

“Kandahar

Always remember

GC-GM-ZM-KT-ML“

Garrett Chidley. George Miok. Zachery McCormack. Kirk Taylor. Michelle Lang.

It's a private epitaph born of nanoseconds of death and destruction on Dec. 30, 2009, that stretch on for the survivors, eyewitnesses and families left behind. .......
(remainder in news link)



http://www.albertalocalnews.com/reddeeradvocate/lifestyles/One_year_after_the_bomb_went_off_112616549.html

 

[The Bread Guy]

This, from a Calgary Herald blog writer/columnist:

In an emotional ceremony today in the Calgary Herald newsroom, we were honoured to meet several of the survivors of the military patrol that was ambushed near Kandahar City on Dec. 30. 2009, killing our colleague, Michelle Lang, and four Canadian soldiers: Garrett Chidley, George Miok, Zachery McCormack and Kirk Taylor.

Bushra Saeed, a Canadian diplomat who lost her leg in the attack, Cpl. Barrett Fraser of the Calgary Highlanders, who was also wounded, and Warrant Officer Troy MacGillivray of the King’s Own Calgary Regiment were on hand as Gen. Walt Natynczyk, Canada’s chief of defence staff, presented the Herald with a memorial plaque to Michelle that was put up outside the media tent at Kandahar Airfield after her death. Michelle’s parents, Art and Sandra Lang, who also attended the brief ceremony, asked that the plaque be given to the Herald  after the Kandahar Airfield was decommissioned earlier this year.

Made by Canadian soldiers out of local wood from Afghanistan, the plaque is a touchstone  for us. Refurbished after being worn and battered by the Afghan wind and dust, it is one of the few things we have that is directly linked to Michelle in Afghanistan.

Saeed, Fraser and MacGillivary were among the last people to see Michelle alive, and we were grateful for their presence. Saeed still wears a bracelet on her wrist inscribed with the names of Michelle,  Chidley,  Miok,  McCormack and  Taylor. “I never take it off,” she said.

MacGillivray, the patrol commander of the three-vehicle convoy, still carries the burden of what happened.

“Obviously, I’ve thought a lot about that day,” he told me.  There was no need to explain. We know that Michelle was in good hands ....

Calgary Herald blog, 29 Nov 11

More from this from The Canadian Press.

 

[dapaterson]

Friends and family of Michelle Lang went to visit the bay in northern Saskatchewan named after her. 

http://www.macleans.ca/society/the-journey-to-honour-a-fallen-canadian-reporter/