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Military jet crashes as army training mission preps soldiers for northern duties
A military jet has crashed into a wooded field in a rural area east of Montreal, injuring the pilots and severely wounding a passenger and two farmers on the ground.
Screaming residents stumble through thigh-high snow, trying to get to their friends as smoke pours from the fuselage. One man lies face down, blood spattering the snow around his body.
Then the army appears.
Specifically, soldiers from the 5th Service Battalion of the Canadian Armed Forces who have travelled to the Eastern Townships community of Farnham this week from their base in Val Cartier near Quebec City. They're in the midst of a training operation called Frosty Soldier at the military base in preparation for one of the largest Arctic military exercises to be held starting this month in James Bay. More than 1,300 soldiers, along with 200 civilians, will be gathering for Exercise Guerrier Nordique, to bolster the military's northern mandate of search and rescue operations, reconnaissance and "sovereignty patrols," protecting that part of the Arctic that Canada considers ours.
In 2009, as international players including the U.S. and Russia were making noises about who owns the land, waterways and seabeds in the north and the potential resources, Canada's military formed the Arctic Response Company Group composed of four different regiments "to assert Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions" and support the regular forces and Canadian Rangers already patrolling there.
As the Canadian military prepares to withdraw most of its troops from the dusty heat of Afghanistan this year, Canadian soldiers are starting to reacquaint themselves with our country. Which is why the soldiers of the 5th Service Battalion group, whose mandate normally is to ensure troops have gear, food and ammunition, is carrying out a search-and-rescue and first aid training course in the snow.
A soldier's responsibility is to help its citizens, and in northern communities, the army might be the only entity around to provide rescue operations.
"We're getting back to our roots," said Lt.-Col. Daniel Riviere of the 5th Battalion. "We're working in the snow."
The temperature is -13 C (-22 C with the wind chill) which one of the soldiers refers to in true Canadian warrior fashion as "not so bad."
Farther north it can get much worse. Members of Quebec regiment Les Voltigeurs slept out in tents in temperatures that dipped to -60 C last winter. To ensure they don't die before the enemy arrives, soldiers are well equipped these days, wearing several layers of relatively lightweight gear that keeps them warm and dry.
"It's generally like gear you would get at Mountain Equipment Co-op," said Lt. Michele Tremblay. "Except it's all in green, or camouflage."
The secret to survival in Canada's killing cold is to stay dry, so soldiers on overnight missions carry backpacks weighing 55 pounds filled with two changes of clothes. There are extra felt liners for the boots, and three layers to their sleeping bags: a felt inside layer, a down sleeping bag in the middle and a waterproof exterior shell.
Also in the bag is a pot to cook with, water bottles, matches, a shovel and personal gear including toothbrushes.
On their bodies, they carry C-7 rifles, extra ammunition clips, a bayonet and grenades.
For this week's exercise, the soldiers carry less gear, running in to assess the mock plane crash situation, triage the patients in order of the severity of their wounds (the corpse is carried out last) and evacuate all from the smouldering wreckage. They will also practise contending with equipment failures, mechanical repairs and fuelling vehicles in temperatures well below freezing.
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