In, I believe, 1986 Mark Baker published a book called 'Nam. It couldn't rightfully be called a piece of literature, or even a proper novel. It is a collection of short, often anecdotal stories tape-recorded from a variety of Vietnam veterans talking about their experiences in and surrounding the war. The book is organized almost chronologically by the experiences, segregated into recruitment, the war (which is sub-categorized into smaller chunks), and homecoming. It remains one of the most effective portraits of war printed on page - the same way Michael Herr's Dispatches managed to capture and encapsulate the thrills, insanity, beauty, horror, and truths of war by giving us a pile-up of snapshots and stream-of-conscious narration from his eyes on the conflict.
I've been a Cameron Highlander for approximately six years now. In 2010, I, along with 40-or so other Camerons, deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan as part of Op Athena in a variety of roles. I found myself a rifleman in Bravo Company of 1-RCR, along with dozen or so; others worked in PSY-OPs, Force Protection, OMLT, or other Stream III gigs in-theater. As we trained and rotated out, another 40-or so had just rotated back home from their 2008 roto; and so on. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred Camerons have rotated from Ottawa to Afghanistan between '06 and the present - a figure that represents the largest (from a single Canadian militia regiment) deployed individuals since the Korean War. Mostly these experiences are shared, boasted, confided, lampooned, or glossed over well into the early hours of the next morning on Thursday nights in the Junior Ranks Mess over beers.
I think our country's involvement (some would say misadventure) in South-East Asia is one of the most under-represented examples of the human experience in media; well, par for the course when considering any Canadian military experience, really - from the Suez Canal to the Medak Pocket to the sun-washed wasteland of Belet Huen few Canadians give a shit about what our soldiers are doing and where unless it gives them a hard-on to bitch about it. I admit no illusion to writing "The Great Modern War Novel" here - I'm not pompous. Nor am I a journalist. Let's get that shit straightened out right here. What I aim to do is put to page stories - human experiences - and avoid as much as possible getting entangled in the intricacies of facts and details and accuracy (except where crucial). War stories are probably one of the most difficult to get straight anyway - a good war story is rarely straight, by the time it's reached your ears the story-teller already knows what you want to hear; knows what you don't want to hear. War stories entertain, mortify, sober, thrill; war stories are just fucking told, man - I've never heard a good story that was told the same way twice and I don't expect to dot my Is and strike my Ts here rather than over a beer in the mess where that story belongs. What I remember from my tour is in some places radically different from what the rest of my section and platoon remember - events are distorted and occasionally overlap depending on the requirements of that particular narrative.
So enough with this preamble, already; I'm going to publish my own personal collection of short stories detailing my experiences in South-Western Kandahar alongside the stories of other Camerons (all of which, regardless of their experience, have a story to tell I assure you). For those of you looking for radical high-intensity alley firefights and fucking A10s strafing the shit out of everything across a landscape horizoned by mountains shaped like Xboxes, you're looking in the wrong place and go look in traffic. I'm not saying there won't be (shit, we are talking about war here, dig?), but a story is a story is a story and whether it had more bullets or bug-repellant, firefights or foolishness, or just boys throwing garbage into a burn pit while chirping each other makes no difference to me. I want to hear what guys had to say - not what they wished they had to say or what they expect people (idiots) want to hear.
So that's talking turkey right there. Advance, and all that.
I've been a Cameron Highlander for approximately six years now. In 2010, I, along with 40-or so other Camerons, deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan as part of Op Athena in a variety of roles. I found myself a rifleman in Bravo Company of 1-RCR, along with dozen or so; others worked in PSY-OPs, Force Protection, OMLT, or other Stream III gigs in-theater. As we trained and rotated out, another 40-or so had just rotated back home from their 2008 roto; and so on. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred Camerons have rotated from Ottawa to Afghanistan between '06 and the present - a figure that represents the largest (from a single Canadian militia regiment) deployed individuals since the Korean War. Mostly these experiences are shared, boasted, confided, lampooned, or glossed over well into the early hours of the next morning on Thursday nights in the Junior Ranks Mess over beers.
I think our country's involvement (some would say misadventure) in South-East Asia is one of the most under-represented examples of the human experience in media; well, par for the course when considering any Canadian military experience, really - from the Suez Canal to the Medak Pocket to the sun-washed wasteland of Belet Huen few Canadians give a shit about what our soldiers are doing and where unless it gives them a hard-on to bitch about it. I admit no illusion to writing "The Great Modern War Novel" here - I'm not pompous. Nor am I a journalist. Let's get that shit straightened out right here. What I aim to do is put to page stories - human experiences - and avoid as much as possible getting entangled in the intricacies of facts and details and accuracy (except where crucial). War stories are probably one of the most difficult to get straight anyway - a good war story is rarely straight, by the time it's reached your ears the story-teller already knows what you want to hear; knows what you don't want to hear. War stories entertain, mortify, sober, thrill; war stories are just fucking told, man - I've never heard a good story that was told the same way twice and I don't expect to dot my Is and strike my Ts here rather than over a beer in the mess where that story belongs. What I remember from my tour is in some places radically different from what the rest of my section and platoon remember - events are distorted and occasionally overlap depending on the requirements of that particular narrative.
So enough with this preamble, already; I'm going to publish my own personal collection of short stories detailing my experiences in South-Western Kandahar alongside the stories of other Camerons (all of which, regardless of their experience, have a story to tell I assure you). For those of you looking for radical high-intensity alley firefights and fucking A10s strafing the shit out of everything across a landscape horizoned by mountains shaped like Xboxes, you're looking in the wrong place and go look in traffic. I'm not saying there won't be (shit, we are talking about war here, dig?), but a story is a story is a story and whether it had more bullets or bug-repellant, firefights or foolishness, or just boys throwing garbage into a burn pit while chirping each other makes no difference to me. I want to hear what guys had to say - not what they wished they had to say or what they expect people (idiots) want to hear.
So that's talking turkey right there. Advance, and all that.
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