Peter MacKay Canada's finest Minister of Defence in Decades, hints about post 2011 troop situation and Canada's contribution to NATO and specifically Afghanistan. The current projects being carried by our Military, RCMP, PRT, Police and Corrections. As well as the myriad of NGO's and aid organisations. These Canadians will still require Troops in a defensive capacity if not outright Combat.
Peter MacKay in Combat training and in Combat mode at question period.
Canada could still have soldiers in Afghanistan beyond 2011, although the government maintains that combat operations will cease. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada will pull its troops out of Afghanistan by 2011.
The government, however, is considering many options for continuing to help the Afghan population including security, which would undoubtedly involve an unspecified number of soldiers, said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
It involves securing, but working to develop the countryside, working to invest in infrastructure, said MacKay.
Working to help build capacity, immunizing children, educating children, building democratic institutions all of which Canada is involved in now.
Much of that development, medical aid and reconstruction work falls to Canada's provincial reconstruction team, or PRT, based in Kandahar. When specifically asked Tuesday whether Canada's PRT would remain in the volatile region, MacKay would not rule it out.We're considering a number of options, MacKay said after being questioned by reporters about the PRT.
The PRT base is entirely separate from the combat units, located at Kandahar Airfield, NATO's principal base in southern Afghanistan.
Still, it is protected by 150 Canadian military personnel that are often just as much in harm's way as combat soldiers.
Photo by BILL GRAVELAND, THE CANADIAN PRESS
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The young Afghan soldier lay on a stretcher inside a Blackhawk medevac helicopter, his heavily bandaged left arm having sustained a gunshot wound and multiple fractures -- evidence of a run-in with the Taliban.
The smell of fuel and the din of the rotor fills the air as Canadian Master Cpl. Pierre Desrosiers, 39, and U.S. medic Matthew Salak tend to their patient as the chopper, stripped of any lethal armament, makes its way to the ANA hospital at Camp Hero, outside Kandahar Airfield. It's just another day at the office for the medevac crews, who provide 24-hour emergency service to Canadian and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The medics work 48-hour shifts, waiting for calls at their home-away-from-home near the runway at Kandahar Airfield, much the way firefighters spend several days at a stretch at the fire hall, waiting for an emergency call.
The principal difference here, of course, is that even a routine call can be deadly.
You have to be a bit of an (adrenalin) junkie, because when you get the call, when the 9-liner comes in, it's the rush, the adrenaline rush, says Desrosiers, who -- as a former paramedic in Montreal -- is no stranger to answering calls for help.
I think you need to have the desire to be able to help and have that rush at the same time.
The medevac chopper is often called upon to land in the thick of the fighting to pick up wounded.
Chinooks both deliver troops and recover troops Working to the MAX
You don't really think about the fear, you think about the patient, says Desrosiers, who seems perplexed at the prospect of the alternative. Seriously, that's a good question. I had never really thought about that before.
You want to comfort them as much as possible and you want to get them safely here to KAF. They say if we bring them alive to KAF, they will leave alive. Our main goal is maintain their vital signs and bring them home.
Col Danielle Savard CO Kandahar Hospital receives the med evacs for further treatment.
Despite the multinational nature of NATO's mission in Afghanistan, Desrosiers admits it's hard not to sneak a peek, once the urgency of the situation has passed, to see if he's dealing with a Canadian casualty.
When it's Canadian, even though I'm not going to change anything, I want to do a little bit more, he admits quietly. I want them to know that I am Canadian too so they can relate, and they know someone from home is taking care of them now, so they're with a piece of home all the time.
He has yet to lose a Canadian patient while on the flight back to KAF's Canadian-run Role 3 Hospital, but did recently feel the sting of losing a recent passenger: Master Cpl. Charles-Philippe Michaud, of Edmundston, N.B., who died in a Quebec City hospital nearly two weeks after he stepped on a landmine in the Panjwaii district.
At one point I was kind of mad and disappointed that had happened, Desrosiers recalls. But my girlfriend said, 'You brought him home so his family was able to see him while he was still alive.' So I guess I did do something decent and good.
All medics of all NATO allies are doing superb work.
Remember Everyone Deployed
Nil Sine Labore
Robby
