didn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say. I blamed myself for that IED for a long time. In the end, I realized, it was a fucking truck broken down on the road. What was I supposed to do? Call out the fighter jets?
As I think about this, an ANA Ford Ranger comes flying down the road doing “mach chicken” (very, very fast). There are three Afghan soldiers in the back, one hanging onto a .50 cal machine gun, and the other two looking bored as they go over the ruts and bumps on the gravel road. They pass right over the culvert that is being searched. I see the soldiers in front of me shrug, stand up, and carry on. We begin our shuffling procession again.
I can’t believe how slowly we are walking, and people begin to close up naturally. This is bad; it is of the utmost importance that we maintain spacing of between five and ten metres when we walk. That way, if one person steps on an IED, it doesn’t take out the person in front or behind him. Also, if we get lit up, a cluster of soldiers provides a convenient target, and it’s a lot harder to sort ourselves out after the rounds begin to fly.
We stop again and I find myself standing right behind the OC, so close that I could almost touch him. Major Lane stands even closer to Chris, who turns around and points at me, “Fuck, Flavelle, watch your fucking spacing.”
I feel like an idiot and resolve to make a more conscious effort as the patrol progresses. The OC does not. Chris later tells me that he wasn’t actually yelling at me, but hinting at Major Lane. His pleas fell on deaf ears, and Chris had to endure the OC’s close presence for most of the patrol.
If I could use only two words to describe Corporal Christopher Nead, they would be
powerful
and
precise.
Chris is short and stocky, with blond hair that spikes everywhere when he lets it grow (he once said, “War is hell—on your hair”). He is occasionally referred to by his friends as a “troll doll.” He bought every addition that one can buy for his personal weapon (a C8 carbine), and when we deployed he had a brand-new ACOG sight (immensely superior to the one we were issued), a rail-mount system to better secure additions like a laser sight or flashlight onto the barrel, and a dual magazine holder. I once held his weapon and was amazed at its weight (C8s are generally much lighter than C7s like the one I carried). Chris works out often and seems to bristle with power. He is a qualified Canadian sniper.
Canadian snipers are among the best in the world. The very word
sniper
carries with it an aura of hardcore. Whereas the Communication Reserve is about as far down the credibility totem pole one can get, snipers are the celebrities of the military community. Everyone looks up to them, talks about them, and to a certain extent wishes they could be one of them. Almost everyone knows that a Canadian sniper, Corporal Rob Furlong, once held the record for longest confirmed kill (2,430 metres, or 1.5 miles). At my unit in Calgary, I would have had about as much chance of interacting with a sniper as I would with Peter Mansbridge or Jarome Iginla. Chris Nead lives up to the reputation of Canadian snipers as being highly disciplined: he even managed to quit smoking while on his sniper course. He is also jolly, slightly vindictive, and an immensely interesting person to know.
While in Recce Platoon, an entirely separate entity formed by the battalion’s snipers and reconnaissance soldiers, he had a “disagreement” with the master sniper, and had been put back into B Company with us. We met on a live-fire night range. Neither of us had a partner, so we were paired to run through the “night pairs”range, which involves using your night vision goggles (NVGs) and laser sight to hit pop-up targets at varying ranges. I didn’t do particularly well, it being only the third time I had ever worn NVGs and my second time on a live pairs range. However, Chris was amazing. As soon as I would see the indistinct shape
I didn’t know what to say. I blamed myself for that IED for a long time. In the end, I realized, it was a fucking truck broken down on the road. What was I supposed to do? Call out the fighter jets?
As I think about this, an ANA Ford Ranger comes flying down the road doing “mach chicken” (very, very fast). There are three Afghan soldiers in the back, one hanging onto a .50 cal machine gun, and the other two looking bored as they go over the ruts and bumps on the gravel road. They pass right over the culvert that is being searched. I see the soldiers in front of me shrug, stand up, and carry on. We begin our shuffling procession again.
I can’t believe how slowly we are walking, and people begin to close up naturally. This is bad; it is of the utmost importance that we maintain spacing of between five and ten metres when we walk. That way, if one person steps on an IED, it doesn’t take out the person in front or behind him. Also, if we get lit up, a cluster of soldiers provides a convenient target, and it’s a lot harder to sort ourselves out after the rounds begin to fly.
We stop again and I find myself standing right behind the OC, so close that I could almost touch him. Major Lane stands even closer to Chris, who turns around and points at me, “Fuck, Flavelle, watch your fucking spacing.”
I feel like an idiot and resolve to make a more conscious effort as the patrol progresses. The OC does not. Chris later tells me that he wasn’t actually yelling at me, but hinting at Major Lane. His pleas fell on deaf ears, and Chris had to endure the OC’s close presence for most of the patrol.
If I could use only two words to describe Corporal Christopher Nead, they would be
powerful
and
precise.
Chris is short and stocky, with blond hair that spikes everywhere when he lets it grow (he once said, “War is hell—on your hair”). He is occasionally referred to by his friends as a “troll doll.” He bought every addition that one can buy for his personal weapon (a C8 carbine), and when we deployed he had a brand-new ACOG sight (immensely superior to the one we were issued), a rail-mount system to better secure additions like a laser sight or flashlight onto the barrel, and a dual magazine holder. I once held his weapon and was amazed at its weight (C8s are generally much lighter than C7s like the one I carried). Chris works out often and seems to bristle with power. He is a qualified Canadian sniper.
Canadian snipers are among the best in the world. The very word
sniper
carries with it an aura of hardcore. Whereas the Communication Reserve is about as far down the credibility totem pole one can get, snipers are the celebrities of the military community. Everyone looks up to them, talks about them, and to a certain extent wishes they could be one of them. Almost everyone knows that a Canadian sniper, Corporal Rob Furlong, once held the record for longest confirmed kill (2,430 metres, or 1.5 miles). At my unit in Calgary, I would have had about as much chance of interacting with a sniper as I would with Peter Mansbridge or Jarome Iginla. Chris Nead lives up to the reputation of Canadian snipers as being highly disciplined: he even managed to quit smoking while on his sniper course. He is also jolly, slightly vindictive, and an immensely interesting person to know.
While in Recce Platoon, an entirely separate entity formed by the battalion’s snipers and reconnaissance soldiers, he had a “disagreement” with the master sniper, and had been put back into B Company with us. We met on a live-fire night range. Neither of us had a partner, so we were paired to run through the “night pairs”range, which involves using your night vision goggles (NVGs) and laser sight to hit pop-up targets at varying ranges. I didn’t do particularly well, it being only the third time I had ever worn NVGs and my second time on a live pairs range. However, Chris was amazing. As soon as I would see the indistinct shape
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