Fifteen Days Stories of Bravery Friendship Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (Audible Audio Edition) Christie Blatchford Matilda Novak Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Fifteen Days Stories of Bravery Friendship Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (Audible Audio Edition) Christie Blatchford Matilda Novak Audible Studios Books
Long before she made her first trip to Afghanistan as an embedded reporter for The Globe and Mail, Christie Blatchford was already one of Canada's most respected and eagerly read journalists. Her vivid prose, her unmistakable voice, her ability to connect emotionally with her subjects and readers, her hard-won and hard-nosed skills as a reporter had already established her as a household name. But with her many reports from Afghanistan, and in dozens of interviews with the returned members of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and others back at home, she found the subject she was born to tackle.
Her reporting of the conflict and her deeply empathetic observations of the men and women who wear the maple leaf are words for the ages, fit to stand alongside the nation's best writing on war. It is a testament to Christie Blatchford's skills and integrity that along with the admiration of her readers, she won the respect and trust of the soldiers. They share breathtakingly honest accounts of their desire to serve, their willingness to confront fear and danger in the battlefield, their loyalty towards each other and the heartbreak occasioned by the loss of one of their own.
Grounded in insights gained over the course of three trips to Afghanistan in 2006, and drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews not only with the servicemen and -women with whom she shared so much, but with their commanders and family members as well, Christie Blatchford creates a detailed, complex and deeply affecting picture of military life in the 21st century.
Fifteen Days Stories of Bravery Friendship Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (Audible Audio Edition) Christie Blatchford Matilda Novak Audible Studios Books
A Canadian perspective on the casualties of modern war. As a veteran, I found the stories of these fine young people emotionally gutting. No one can understand the true consequences of battle without experiencing it. "Bravo Zulu" to Christie for conveying the comradery, loyalty, and valour ofthese warriors and those left behind to mourn them.
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Fifteen Days Stories of Bravery Friendship Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (Audible Audio Edition) Christie Blatchford Matilda Novak Audible Studios Books Reviews
Christie Blatachford's FIFTEEN DAYS is a 'must read' for anyone who wants to get a glimpse into the world of Canadian troops serving their country (and the Afghan people) in Afghanistan. Blatchford takes the reader to the front lines, and into the minds of soldiers fighting an enemy who appears from nowhere and is a constant threat. (One might sub-title this book Trying to Find the Taliban). She also describes a country of great beauty, as well as one stricken with a dry, hot desolation. That contrast is also evident in the support the troops receive from the local population. Some helpful to the Canadians, some who live in fear of the Taliban, some who are perhaps still loyal to the Taliban. In some of her journalistic writing, I have often found Ms. Blatchford goes a bit overboard trying to tug at our emotions. Not here. Perhaps because she is managing her considerable skills at their peak, and partly because she realizes it is unnecessary, given the material. There's enough here to weep about with the uninterrupted deaths of men and women gracing each chapter. And lots to celebrate that Canada has produced the kind of soldiers ready to take on such a dangerous mission. Who knows if we will 'win' in Afghanistan. But I don't think the Canadian soldiers there need fear their contribution and sacrifice will be forgotten. Thanks to the job they are doing, and Ms. Blatchford's excellent reporting.
Bob Patterson's review really captured a lot of what I was feeling. As a former member of the Canadian Army, I was not only able to see in my mind's eye the scenes that Christie was describing, I was able to see many of the soldiers, often because I actually knew those men. The Canadian Army is not big - and the Army of West is probably about 6,000 Regulars and a few more thousand reservists - that's not a very big town, and all of the larger than life characters tend to become known by all - men like Mars Janek, whom I had the honor to serve with back in 1995, and who features prominently in this book as the extraordinary soldier that he is. Canadians really have no idea how lucky they are that these bright young men and women are willing to put their lives on the line in the service of their country.
Christie did a great job with this book, and clearly she wrote it her own way. My only real citicism is that I would have liked her to spend a bit more time of the achievements and field operations, and a little bit less on deaths, but I understand why she went the route that she did.
The Canadian army is very small - many organizations claim to be like a "family" but the Canadian Army is a family. In the larger world there may be 6 degrees of separation but in the Canadian Army there may be only two. So every loss is a wound for all. Every loss is indeed the death of a brother.
This remarkable book is a revelation of what it may mean to be part of a true Band of Brothers - a world where the most senior general lends a master corporal his own wedding ring so that he can ask his girl to marry him - a world where the entire platoon comes to the home of a fallen comrade and spends a week in the community celebrating his life - a world where a 40 plus year old widow enlists so that she can continue to be part of the family - a world where Colonels weep for their men.
The book also causes the reader to think more deeply about war and soldiers. It is politically correct to feel that all war and everything about it is bad. But we discover, that for all its terror and for all the losses, for a soldier war is what he lives for. It is when he also discovers whether he is any good at his life's work. We discover how good our soldiers are. Surprisingly, for we always think the less of ourselves, in Afghanistan, we are considered the heavy weights who punch well above our weight.
We discover that while war exhausts a person more than any other activity, it also makes him more alive.
We discover that PTSD is much more prevalent in peacekeeping than in the kind of situation that we find in Afghanistan. In peacekeeping the kit was awful and the impotence high - imagine simply witnessing atrocity? But in Afghanistan our soldiers can take the initiative and they are very well equipped and have rules of engagement that make sense.
We discover a new kind of woman soldier - who are at home in this strange world, as is of course the "Blatch", and who are no longer seen as odd.
We discover how the families of our soldiers have been integrated into the mission and we see how the worst of all news is given and how the families are supported when what they all fear the most occurs.
This is not the civil service in green that was the sadness of our forces for many years. Implicit throughout the book is that someone really knows that he is doing. I think that someone might be called Rick Hillier.
We discover how great our local field leadership is too which also says something more about General Hillier -
Brig- Genl Dave Fraser to LTC Ian Hope, in radio orders given at 11.30pm on July 17 "You need to recapture Nawa and Garmser by 1600 hours.
Hope to Fraser "Roger that. Recapture Nawa and Garmser by 1600 hours."
Fraser "Any questions?"
Hope "Just one Where are Nawa and Garmser?'
Not only do we routinely pull off tough missions, but the Cols take all the risks that their men do - they lead by example. They also tend to do the really terrible things like personally extract the burnt and mutilated bodies of their dead so that the buddies in the platoon would not have to remember their friend like that. There is all this bull in the public service about "Servant Leadership". Here you see it for real at all levels from the LTC down to the Master Corporal.
We discover the central frustration of the mission. That we have to go back again and again and take the same ground because the ANP, the police, cannot hold it - we learn how complex this work is.
But most of all, we learn how fortunate we are to have those wonderful people wearing our uniform.
It is a mystery to me how, in a nation, so cut off from the reality of war, that we can once again have the kind of army that we had in 1917. A pathfinder Army.
A small army that can think and adapt. A small army that is lead by men and women of an integrity and skill that put our business and public organizations to shame. A small army largely made up from men and women from small town Canada who have that can do attitude that used to be the hallmark of Canadians.
Who else could tell this story but "Blatch"? A woman who acknowledges that she knows of only two soldiers who swear more than she. A woman who shares the hardships, the joys, the terrors, the losses and the fun. A woman who loves her boys and who is loved back.
She writes with such a love and a passion - I could not put the book down except when my eyes were so full of tears that I could no longer see.
It is exciting, it's very funny, it's very sad. But in the end it is heroic. Not in a little boy's view of heroic but in the most mythic sense of people who live for each other in undertaking a very hard task.
At the end of the book, "Blatch" goes back to see everyone to see how they are.
"Eight months later, Hope (LTC Ian Hope) answers my email form an airport lounge somewhere. I wrote back to tell him of one of the stories - bawdy and funny, loving and sad, always brutally honest - I'd heard from the troops.
You must miss them so xxxxxx much," I said. " I can hardly bear to write about them sometimes. I find them so beautiful."
"You understand what I miss," he wrote back. "I am Odysseus."
This is a wonderful book about wonderful people written by a wonderful person - who has by the way a wonderful dog but that is another story.
A great read, in-depth and full of feeling and understanding for the men fighting in Afghanistan. Very well written book.
Good read.
marvelous piece of kit
A very well written book that covers the lives of fifteen of our soldiers from Canada who lost their lives in Afghanistan. As a country, we send our people into war and never really know what they have to go through. This opened my eyes and gave me a new respect for all that they do in our country"s name.
A Canadian perspective on the casualties of modern war. As a veteran, I found the stories of these fine young people emotionally gutting. No one can understand the true consequences of battle without experiencing it. "Bravo Zulu" to Christie for conveying the comradery, loyalty, and valour of
these warriors and those left behind to mourn them.
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