Battery (E) included in Christmas gifts
December 24, 2006 Oakland Ross Staff reporter
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BRAVE FRONT | Soldiers' nonchalance fades at sight of treasures from loved ones back home
PATROL BASE WILSON, Afghanistan–Sudden as a desert sunrise, Christmas came calling for the stouthearted men of Battery E.
One moment, they were firing 5.56-mm automatic-rifle rounds on a practice range adjoining their base here in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. The next thing they knew, Santa Claus had come and gone – several days early and a long, long way from home.
"Well, I'll be darned" – or words to that effect – said Bombardier Josh Erling, 24, of Ottawa, as he stared wide-eyed at the stacks of elaborately wrapped boxes heaped upon his camp cot in the tent he shares with the other members of his small artillery unit. "I don't know where to start."
He wasn't alone.
The other cots in the tent were all in a similar state, buried beneath mounds of Christmas bounty, when only an hour or so earlier they were merely army-issue camp cots, plain and simple, burdened with nothing more remarkable than army-issue sleeping bags.
But, on their return from rifle practice on the 35-metre firing range set up behind this Canadian-run forward-operating base in southern Afghanistan, the artillerymen of Battery E suddenly found themselves confronted by something that looked an awful lot like Christmas. Presents – lots and lots of presents, all packed and sealed and dispatched to Afghanistan by family and friends back home in Canada.
"This is awesome," exulted Bombardier Ed Hoszko, 23, also from Ottawa.
Like the others, he hovered near the tent's low entrance, peering inside as if it contained the world's largest and most brightly illuminated Christmas trees, surrounded by heaps of the planet's largest conglomeration of gifts.
And then, for a short while, these youngsters on the cusp of manhood seemed to remember themselves.
For a brief time, they tried to be nonchalant, tried to act as if this were no big deal, as if they were a group of typically jaded, world-weary adults, for whom the prospect of tearing open bundles and boxes containing treasures from loved ones back home were just another mindless chore in a long list of mindless daily chores, something that could wait for, oh, some other day – such as, let us say, tomorrow.
But they weren't fooling anybody, much less themselves. Pretty soon the Canadian troops in this particular tent had reverted to a rambunctious state any impartial observer would immediately identify as "boyhood."
Making straight for their respective cots, they proceeded to burrow through these surprise stashes of Christmas loot, even though the big day had yet to formally arrive.
"I'm gonna have to do one package a day," said Erling, in what might have been a fit of conscience.
But he was kidding himself.
Like the others in Battery E – like any youngster anywhere in the world faced with such an overwhelming temptation – he just dove straight in and kept right on going, all the while keeping up a running commentary on his progress through this unexpected abundance.
"It's a scarf!" he announced at one point, and later: "Truffles!"
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December 24, 2006 Oakland Ross Staff reporter
Article Link
BRAVE FRONT | Soldiers' nonchalance fades at sight of treasures from loved ones back home
PATROL BASE WILSON, Afghanistan–Sudden as a desert sunrise, Christmas came calling for the stouthearted men of Battery E.
One moment, they were firing 5.56-mm automatic-rifle rounds on a practice range adjoining their base here in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. The next thing they knew, Santa Claus had come and gone – several days early and a long, long way from home.
"Well, I'll be darned" – or words to that effect – said Bombardier Josh Erling, 24, of Ottawa, as he stared wide-eyed at the stacks of elaborately wrapped boxes heaped upon his camp cot in the tent he shares with the other members of his small artillery unit. "I don't know where to start."
He wasn't alone.
The other cots in the tent were all in a similar state, buried beneath mounds of Christmas bounty, when only an hour or so earlier they were merely army-issue camp cots, plain and simple, burdened with nothing more remarkable than army-issue sleeping bags.
But, on their return from rifle practice on the 35-metre firing range set up behind this Canadian-run forward-operating base in southern Afghanistan, the artillerymen of Battery E suddenly found themselves confronted by something that looked an awful lot like Christmas. Presents – lots and lots of presents, all packed and sealed and dispatched to Afghanistan by family and friends back home in Canada.
"This is awesome," exulted Bombardier Ed Hoszko, 23, also from Ottawa.
Like the others, he hovered near the tent's low entrance, peering inside as if it contained the world's largest and most brightly illuminated Christmas trees, surrounded by heaps of the planet's largest conglomeration of gifts.
And then, for a short while, these youngsters on the cusp of manhood seemed to remember themselves.
For a brief time, they tried to be nonchalant, tried to act as if this were no big deal, as if they were a group of typically jaded, world-weary adults, for whom the prospect of tearing open bundles and boxes containing treasures from loved ones back home were just another mindless chore in a long list of mindless daily chores, something that could wait for, oh, some other day – such as, let us say, tomorrow.
But they weren't fooling anybody, much less themselves. Pretty soon the Canadian troops in this particular tent had reverted to a rambunctious state any impartial observer would immediately identify as "boyhood."
Making straight for their respective cots, they proceeded to burrow through these surprise stashes of Christmas loot, even though the big day had yet to formally arrive.
"I'm gonna have to do one package a day," said Erling, in what might have been a fit of conscience.
But he was kidding himself.
Like the others in Battery E – like any youngster anywhere in the world faced with such an overwhelming temptation – he just dove straight in and kept right on going, all the while keeping up a running commentary on his progress through this unexpected abundance.
"It's a scarf!" he announced at one point, and later: "Truffles!"
More on link
