Good afternoon.
Thank you for the invitation to appear before you as a witness to share my experiences as a tactical combat team commander in Afghanistan from September 2008 to April 2009.
Operating from Forward Operating Base Frontenac, which is located slightly north of Kandahar city, my core team was based on an armoured reconnaissance squadron with attachments from the infantry, combat engineers, artillery and other specialists. Our initial core strength was 145 personnel. I emphasize the word “initial” because, sadly, four of my soldiers were killed in action doing what Canada asked them to do.
It was on this occasion that I deployed with these amazing Canadians outside the wire on a daily basis to conduct combat operations.
I would like to quickly highlight two critical takeaways from my experience in Afghanistan that I believe are very relevant to the discussion of active service of Canadian Forces members.
The first is leadership in combat. During my career, I deployed in several missions, each with its own inherent challenges and dangers. For me, being a combat commander in Afghanistan, with all of its complexities and the responsibility for making daily life-and-death decisions, often void of all information, was the most powerful, professional and emotional experience of my life.
We were at war. We were engaged in daily operations against a determined and armed enemy. Every day we were at risk of being targeted, wounded or killed. We were expected to do the same to our enemy, if legally called upon.
My decisions, the way I led and employed my team to achieve our mission, and ultimately the orders I issued to my soldiers would have an immediate as well as a lifelong impact on every single one of them.
In the performance of our mission, we suffered significant casualties. My core team suffered 26% casualties due to enemy action. This included four soldiers killed and 34 seriously injured. Of those, 22 soldiers who were critically wounded were repatriated to Canada. These figures do not begin to reflect those who continue to suffer with seen and unseen injuries many years after our deployment.
To put this into an operational perspective, at staff college, where military officers are trained in operational planning, we used wartime figures that suggest that after a unit has suffered 10% to 15% casualties, it is deemed combat-ineffective and subsequently removed from the front line for reconstitution. In Afghanistan, however, there was no front line. The enemy was all around us. Reconstitution never fully occurred, despite our casualties.
I share these statistics not as a scorecard or to glorify casualties but to highlight the immediate and long-term human impact of war on our people.
We, as leaders, have a very direct and significant responsibility to our personnel as we make life-altering decisions in these unpredictable and dangerous war zones. Leadership is not only about achieving operational or tactical success; it's also about having compassion and enduring commitment to those we are responsible for and accountable to while in the fight and also long afterward. In fact, the health and wellness of our personnel is 100% part of mission success.
The other is unlimited liability. Throughout my years of service to Canada, I proudly accepted unlimited liability, which means I could be lawfully ordered into harm's way under conditions that might lead to loss of life. As regular force members on active service, we never questioned this expectation. When deploying to operations in support of Government of Canada commitments, regardless of the threat environment, unlimited liability remained a constant. We had an obligation to obey lawful orders, but this did not prevent us from asking constructive questions to clarify intent, plan and prepare our teams, or institute important mitigation strategies to de-risk the mission and protect our personnel's health and well-being. Despite all of this, sadly, bad things can still happen.
During my time in Afghanistan, I did receive lawful orders directing my unit to conduct combat missions that put me and my soldiers at risk. Some missions, sadly, resulted in death. Despite these terrible moments, we continued to conduct operations and perform our duty. We did not close shop to escape the dangers that we were faced with on a daily basis.
These difficult times reinforced the importance of trust within our ranks. We had to trust the person to the left and to the right, the chain of command and, by extension, our country and its national institutions, to respect, honour and care for our personnel and their families consistently and meaningfully long after the deployment concluded. The experiences of war are not framed by a start and end date. They are enduring for all members and, by extension, their families.
In closing, I'll say that went through long periods of personal doubt and guilt and significant internal reflection to manage my expectations, my experiences and my decisions; to rationalize the long-term impact of our Afghanistan combat mission on my soldiers and my role, good or bad, in their lives; their reintegration post-deployment; and even their pain. Despite this, I never questioned my role as a leader and the necessity to make difficult decisions, nor did I ever question the necessity of unlimited liability because of operational imperatives, legal obligations and moral expectations.
I am grateful that this committee is focused on this important topic. Thank you for your support to our veterans.
