Pilots in Kandahar get long-awaited Chinook helicopters The Canadian Press
Canadian pilots are flying long-awaited transport helicopters over the Afghan battlefield.
The Canadian Air Force has confirmed that the first of six Chinook helicopters to be purchased from the United States are now at the Kandahar Airfield base.
A small number of Canadian Forces aircrew are in Afghanistan undergoing training on these aircraft, Maj. Dave Sullivan said from Ottawa.
They are not expected to be operational until early 2009.
Canadian crews must also be trained in the care and maintenance of the Chinooks before the helicopters can be fully worked in to battle planning.
Canada has not yet officially taken delivery of the choppers, which will cost a total of $292 million, although that is expected soon.
The deal was announced last August. Canada is buying six used CH-47D Chinooks from the United States and Canadian pilots began training on the aircraft in the U.S. over the summer.
The Chinooks are capable of carrying heavy payloads or several dozen soldiers. Their presence will reduce the need for military convoys to carry supplies and troops over Afghanistan's treacherous, bomb-laden roads.
A total of 40 out of Canada's 97 combat deaths in Afghanistan were caused by improvised explosive devices, although not all those deaths occurred during convoys.
Canada is the only major country in the ISAF alliance that doesn't have its own helicopter support, forcing its troops to rely on other nations, hitching rides when they are available.
Provision of some kind of helicopter support was one of the conditions under which Parliament extended Canada's combat mission to 2011. Helicopters and unmanned surveillance aircraft were both recommended by a panel led by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley.
The push to get battlefield helicopters into Kandahar was mired in defence bureaucracy for almost two years. An internal debate pitted the army, eager to reduce soldiers' exposure to deadly roadside bombs, against a frustrated air force that sought a versatile aircraft, useful in more places than just Afghanistan.
I received a Chain letter from 5 different readers I attach here for your perusal.
British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, 'The Sunday Telegraph' LONDON:
Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped Glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again. That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle. Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.' The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity. So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers. Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia. Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers took out two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit. So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well. Lest we forget.
