National Defence committee  Panjwai and Zhari, sir.

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. If I can just explain, the medical support in theatre for combat troops is really categorized. There are three hierarchies of medical support. At the very front, at the fighting edge, in your example, a patrol that would leave a forward operating base outside the wire is a company with at least one medic per platoon as well as a number of soldiers, at a ratio of one to ten, who have advanced tactical combat care training or advanced first aid.

National Defence committee  No, sir; and unfortunately I came across that situation a number of times during our combat operations. The air medevac system is an ISAF provision, under Regional Command South, and it's multinational. The Americans provide some support, but I've had air medevac support from the British, and from the Dutch as well, in our case.

National Defence committee  Yes, sir, that's absolutely so. For Operation Medusa specifically, when we were going through the operational planning process for that, my medical officer, who's a doctor, made, with her staff, an integral part of our planning in terms of making sure we had sufficient medical capability going forward.

National Defence committee  As I mentioned in my opening remarks, in the case of our battle group, it was about ten months of comprehensive training from the time the battalion and battle group stood up as a fighting force integrating all the other subunits within the brigade to the time we actually deployed into theatre, sir.

National Defence committee  How much training...?

National Defence committee  Honourable committee members, good afternoon. I am Colonel Omer Lavoie. Currently I am the commander for the Canadian Forces, Counter Improvised Explosives Task Force, based here in Ottawa. Related to this appearance, ending at about this time last year I was the battle group commander for the Task Force Kandahar 3/06 rotation.