first time I interviewed him, and he described the modern battlefield as akin to “water droplets on a walnut table, with the droplets the safe haven,” I nearly fainted with pleasure at his use of the language. What the Thunder Said proves the point: John has brought his passion for logistics and shown how in the war in Afghanistan combat happens anywhere and everywhere, putting virtually every soldier, whether infantry or truck driver, squarely on the front line and smack in the midst of the fight.
Logistics and passion, even to those in the reborn Canadian Army (though not to anyone who served in Kandahar in the spring and summer of 2006), may seem a bit of an oxymoron. Arguably no branch of the Canadian Forces (CF) suffered more than logistics during what former Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier used to call “the decade of darkness,” when slashing budgets and numbers were the order of the day. Certainly, no other arm of the forces went so unappreciated, even by those who ought to have known better.
And no other group was so seriously undervalued for so long and then called upon to do so much when the CF returned to all-out combat that summer.
Just how unique was that particular tour in Afghanistan is still not very well understood by many back home.
To many Canadians, the war in Afghanistan seems all of a piece, one summer pretty much indistinguishable from another — there are always deaths, sombre ramp ceremonies, shots of soldiers sweating in that barren moonscape.
But the summer of 2006 was different.
As some elements of the battle group led by the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, were in close-quarter gunfights every day, others were daily travelling hundreds of kilometres over bomb-laden roads (I use the term loosely) to keep them supplied with bullets, water, and rations, while back at Kandahar Air Field, still others worked 10-hour shifts in the sweltering heat of unglamorous tented workshops to keep the machinery humming.
As John told me once, the light armoured vehicles and others that logged two million old-fashioned miles that tour on Afghanistan’s rutted river wadis and rugged ground were going through axles and differentials like popcorn.
Where now Canadian troops stick largely to the fertile areas west of Kandahar City, in those days they also moved to the farthest-flung parts of Kandahar Province, their own area of operations; several times rode to the rescue of the British in nearby Helmand Province; and oversaw the safe movement of Dutch soldiers into Uruzgan Province.
It was an astonishing demonstration of Canadian competence and resolve, and none of it would have been possible without the National Support Element (NSE), the small unit John commanded.
It was these men and women who kept what John calls the mobile Canadian Tire store on the road, and did it with far less armour and protection than their heavily armed peers in the infantry.
I remember a story Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope, the battle group commander, once told me. An infantry officer who was escorting in a resupply convoy complained about the man’s sloppy driving. Lieutenant-Colonel Hope went over to the NSE sergeant in charge and asked how long they’d been on the road.
Four days, he replied.
Ian Hope was gobsmacked. As he said, “I realized just to what extent John [Conrad] was driving his people to keep us supplied.”
John’s book is about those unsung men and women who lived up to the ancient motto of soldiers who maintain supply lines and the tools of warfighting. It’s Arte et Marte, Latin for “by skill and by fighting.” In the summer of 2006, they proved they could do both. They did it without complaint — to be fair, they didn’t have time to complain — and mostly unnoticed.
This book rectifies that. And because it’s written by John Conrad, a soldier-poet, it does so beautifully.
A reconstruction of this magnitude can’t be rendered without a number of willing deckhands. At the risk of offending anyone who helped me along, I would like to acknowledge the pivotal assistance I received from the following people who were close to the manuscript from its earliest beginnings.
I want to thank Christie Blatchford not only for her friendship and encouragement (both of which I value immeasurably) but also for the level of attention she focused upon logistics soldiers serving in the Canadian Forces. Her insightful descriptions of Canadian logistics in Kandahar were unique in my experience and important, for where Christie’s pen goes, so too do many insightful, thoughtful Canadians.
I would like to thank Dr. Howard Coombs and Lieutenant-Colonel Rob McIlroy. I am indebted to Howard for his early review of the book’s first three chapters and his outstanding suggestions. Rob McIlroy’s innumerable reviews of the manuscript and his constant blend of criticism and encouragement were key in keeping my nose to the grindstone.
I would like to acknowledge the gracious assistance of Major Scott McKenzie, who contributed excerpts from his personal Kandahar diary, which he called “Afghanistan Updates,” and Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Earles, who was a constant source of encouragement and advice. I can’t imagine two men I would rather have at my side when the chips are down. Thank you both for your support and generosity throughout the writing of this book. I hope I have held the light high enough over our story.
Colonel Bernd Horn has been a source of inspiration, advice, and mentorship. He helped me frame a labyrinth of raw recollection and impressions into what I hope is an account that is readable for professional and civilian audiences alike. Any lapses into acronym and boring technobabble are my fault and not Bernd’s. Thanks very much, Bernd, for believing in my unit and my book.
Finally, I must acknowledge my wife, Martha Rutherford Conrad, who has always waited so patiently for me to come home and has suffered through countless editorial reviews of the manuscript with the same courage and tenacity she brought to a convoy gone wrong. Thanks, Martha, you know full well that this story would not exist without you.
... and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw ... And when he had opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him.
— Book of Revelation
I will never forget the electric sense of shared enterprise between Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope and myself as we returned to Afghanistan in October 2005 to begin the final preparations for the mission in Kandahar. Were we really going to be taking our units, Canadian battalions, into a war? It seemed impossible and yet the handover briefings from our American counterparts kept bringing us back to the inevitable truth. You could see this on every line of every one of their faces. It is dangerous here.
— Lieutenant-Colonel John Conrad
I am a sucker for history, so there was no way in hell I was going to miss the briefing, overcrowded though it was. The Canadians were coming, and by God, we had a plan. The U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade commander’s austere plywood briefing room at the Kandahar Airfield (KAF) was chockablock in the late afternoon of 30 October 2005, but I pushed my way in and grabbed one of the remaining fringe seats at the back. Under the detailed International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Stage 3 transition, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was
