Posted on 04/22/2002 7:45:31 PM PDT by Mr. Burns
Monday, April 22, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A4
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- It was one of those golden moments a soldier always remembers after the tour s over. Corporal Chris Kopp was lying alongside Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer of Toronto on the dusty brown earth of southern Afghanistan. It was shortly before 2 a.m. and the desert sky was clear. It seemed a far cry from the tent village that is the paratroopers' home.
They were flat on their backs, staring up at the stars, talking about flush toilets and real food and the unique experience of being a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan in these troubled times.
It was a good talk, philosophical. Not the usual barracks banter. Except for the sounds of the mock battle being staged in the background, it was almost serene.
Moments like that can seem to last forever in the army, where soldiers discover that time is rarely their own.
All too soon, it ended. It was 25-year-old Cpl. Dyer's turn to get up and move up the wadi to his machine-gun position during live-fire exercises with Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
Moments later, there were cries of pain, calls for medics and a whirlwind of activity.
Cpl. Dyer and three other Canadian soldiers were lying dead and eight were wounded after a U.S. jet apparently mistook their tracers for hostile fire and dropped a 250-kilogram bomb on their position.
Looking back on those moments, Cpl. Kopp shook his head. "I think people take for granted living without fear of being killed," he said yesterday. "I think that goes to the very reason we're here."
Cpl. Kopp's initial response was to run toward the vehicles parked at Tarnac Puhl, once an al-Qaeda training compound, where coalition troops had been holding live-fire and gunnery-range exercises daily for weeks.
But Warrant Officer Billy Bolen, a 43-year-old native of Edmonton who served with Canada's ill-fated Airborne regiment for 11 years, was ordering troops away from the vehicles.
WO Bolen thought the jet was coming in for a second run. The ammunition truck was filled with C-4 explosives. "Get the hell away from the truck!" he yelled.
Cpl. Kopp of Westbourne, Man., hit the dirt hard. There was no second run. Soon, more people were yelling and the rest of Alpha Company sprung into action.
The company commander, Major Sean Hackett, was in the administration area with most of the rest of the 80 troops on the exercise. They were 200 metres from the explosion.
Major Hackett knew immediately what had happened. He'd heard the jet flying low overhead and the explosion -- a single explosion -- right after.
The blast threw Master Corporal Stan Clark six metres down a hill he had just climbed.
"I saw a big orange flash," MCpl. Clark of Vancouver said. "All I recall is it felt like I got slammed in the chest. I landed on my back. I lost all concept of time and space."
It took MCpl. Clark several seconds to realize he was uninjured; he was incoherent, confused. He thought that a gun had malfunctioned. "As soon as I got to my feet I saw casualties. I realized it was way worse than I thought."
Major Hackett heard his commanders ordering troops to take cover.
A flurry of activity followed, driven by training and adrenaline.
Major Hackett rushed to an ambulance. Company Sergeant-Major Al Whitehall, a 32-year army veteran, radioed to base five kilometres away to order the F-16 pilot to cease fire.
CSM Whitehall then rushed toward the scene of the explosion, sending troops in all directions to secure the area. He didn't think about it; it was automatic.
"Basically, you know something's happened, and it's got to be done," CSM Whitehall said. "You've got to start doing stuff."
Medics and troopers alike administered to the dead and wounded.
"There were guys who couldn't be saved, and that was apparent," Major Hackett said.
"And there were guys who could be saved, and they were."
WO Bolen came across Sgt. Lorne Ford, 33, of Brampton, Ont., who was lying with a massive leg wound and eye injury. He applied a field dressing and moved to the next man, ordering in a helicopter to fly out the wounded as he moved. He told a private to mark off a landing zone with blue and green glow sticks.
"There was lots of confusion there, but it was an organized confusion," WO Bolen said. "There was a lot of yelling and screaming."
MCpl. Rob Coates of Hamilton, who in February had taken an emergency-medical-response course just before leaving Canada, was 50 metres from the explosion. "I could feel the blast and the heat."
He thought the blast was that of an antitank round until he realized it was much louder and more intense than any antitank round he'd seen or heard.
He took cover in a wadi, then moved out to see who needed help. He and Cpl. Kopp found Sgt. Ford, bleeding badly from his leg wound.
Cpl. Kopp asked Sgt. Ford whether he could hear him. Sgt. Ford said yes. Cpl. Kopp asked the sergeant to take a deep breath; he did, without pain. Cpl. Kopp asked him where it hurt. Sgt. Ford said his left leg.
MCpl. Coates, Cpl. Kopp and a medic, Cpl. Jean De La Bourdonayye of Ottawa, worked on the sergeant, cutting off his uniform and dressing the wounds they could see.
They applied pressure on Sgt. Ford's leg then used a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding, probably saving his life.
Cpl. Kopp marked the time on Sgt. Ford's forehead when the tourniquet was applied so the doctors at the base would know. It was 21h54 Zulu (Greenwich mean time, or 2:24 a.m. local).
The two tried to insert an intravenous tube, but Sgt. Ford was slipping into shock and they couldn't get it in. The sergeant was fading. MCpl. Coates kept talking to him.
MCpl. Clark, the section's second-in-command who'd been thrown on to his back by the explosion, was dazed and "bumbling around." But he regained enough composure to help with casualties, some of whom he didn't recognize.
Cpl. Kopp did all he could for Sgt. Ford, then moved on to sweep the area for more casualties. He asked for direction from Sgt. Bill Wilson, who directed him back to the wadi.
There, Cpl. Kopp found MCpl. Curtis Hollister of Cupar, Sask., alone, slumped over. He was suffering from chest and abdominal pains. Cpl. Kopp removed MCpl. Hollister's flak vest and cut off his uniform top.
The helicopter began removing the wounded to camp, where Canadian and U.S. doctors spent the rest of the night saving lives and limbs.
Cpl. Kopp continued looking for casualties, finding the body of Pte. Richard Green, 22, of Mill Cove, N.S. He covered him with a blanket.
Pte. Green had often come to Cpl. Kopp for advice. Before he left for three days rest and relaxation in the Persian Gulf, Pte. Green had asked Cpl. Kopp for advice on an engagement ring.
Pte. Green was going to ask his girlfriend, Miranda Boutilier, to marry him when he got home. He bought a ring and proudly showed it to anyone who would take the time to look. "I just hope she gets the ring and knows what his intentions were," Cpl. Kopp said.
Another fatality was that of Pte. Nathan Smith, 27, of Patamagouche, N.S.
The unit was missing two men. Lieutenant Alastair Luft ordered a search party to comb the dark area and helped carry the wounded to the chopper. "People responded very quickly and confidently," Lt. Luft of Kathryn, Alta., said.
"Whenever an order was given, people acted. People did what needed to be done, without question," he added.
"There were a lot of things going on," WO Bolen said. "Everybody was either giving orders or paying attention to orders."
WO Bolen nearly lost a buddy in Croatia in 1993, but that was nothing like this.
Later, he placed exercise equipment between his cot and that of Sgt. Marc Léger, the company quartermaster who was among the four killed, so he doesn't see the empty space.
"I had a concern about friendly fire, but not about training. I thought maybe something could happen [on offensive operations last month], but not here."
It was the parachute company's first test of fire, and CSM Whitehall said the men should walk away from it with confidence for the job they did. There was -- and is -- anger at the U.S. bombing, but much of that has given way to the question they hope will be answered by a military board of inquiry: Why?
Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Stogran had told his troops to expect casualties.
"I don't think anyone expected them to come like that. It was a real shock," Lt. Luft said.
"I still feel a little lousy," MCpl. Clark said. "I think of all those people killed and wounded all around me, friends too. I'm at a point where I just have to carry on. Maybe it's better I just focus on doing the job, and that will help me cope."
Said Major Hackett: "You can't fill the void they left behind. But we should realize they died doing what they loved to do and they were doing it with the guys they loved. We can honour them best by finishing the job we set out to do."
I never seen combat, I dont know what its like to be in the situation that the coordinator who directed the bomb be it the pilot or some ground force but cannot throw bombs out without some type of line of command to verify if its friendly or not... Im sure Canadians were on the same communication as the rest of the Allies, it would be good to check that before unleashing hell on them.
Sounds to me like he was determined to get some kills in before the excitement died down.
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