Abdoul Guindo has a knack for living dangerously
By DOUG BEAZLEY, SUN MEDIA
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- In the Force Protection unit at Kandahar Airfield, Sgt. Abdoul Guindo has an unrivalled reputation as a little one-man island of bad karma.
He's been here since August, leading convoys to and from the far-flung coalition outposts dotting the landscape around Kandahar City. He's been bombed, strafed and mortared at least 12 times ... maybe more. He lost count a couple of weeks ago.
"I prefer the phrase 'living legend' to 'crap magnet,' " he said, cackling.
He's 28, lives in Ottawa, just got married over a year ago. His wife just had a daughter, their first.
"I stopped counting after the first two attacks. I guess there's a kind of stigma that sticks with me. Our unit gets hit all the time."
Oddly enough, he's never been injured.
"And I never lost anyone, and we've been through some hairy, hairy situations."
How hairy? Take his hairiest day to date - August 29. His convoy rolled out of base and was hit by a suicide vehicle bomber within hours. It blew up one of the trucks, but the convoy escaped without serious injury. They repaired the truck, and moved on.
"Then we rolled into a minefield nobody told us was there. That was fun," he said.
Next: a mortar attack - another near-miss. On the way back to the base a hidden insurgent fired an RPG shot right past his front window.
"Then another mortar attack, then some small arms fire ... you know, an ambush," he said, laughing hard. "Then this vehicle tried to blow us up, but then our gunner put a couple of rounds on the ground, so he turned around and blew himself up.
"That was pretty funny."
One of his convoy members took a round through the hand and the shoulder.
They patched him up and hurried back to base. On the way in, the wounded soldier's Bison failed to negotiate a turn and rolled into a ditch.
THEY LAUGH NOW
Everybody lived through it. They laugh about it now.
"That was pretty much the worst so far," he said.
"I'm lucky? I'm something. I won't know what it is until I get home in February."
Guindo was born in Quebec City to a Haitian Catholic mother and a Muslim father. He was raised Catholic, and devout.
"Hundred per cent Quebec Catholic boy, cross tattooed on the arm, St. Michael medal around the neck, the whole nine yards," he said. "How my folks got married I don't know. I blame alcohol.
"We moved to Haiti when I was eight. After that the war broke out, so we stayed, right, 'cause we couldn't leave. Then we moved to Ottawa when I was 10; 18 years in Ottawa."
His background gives him insights into Islam and religious devotion few Canadian soldiers share. "Muslims are very serious, hardworking people in terms of what they believe in and they'll see it through to the end," he said.
" I admire ( Afghans). I admire their mental work ethic. Too bad it has to be aimed against me.
"We talk to them through the interpreters. We have long discussions. I know the Qur'an a little, and I like to destroy my interpreters' mentalities. I tell them that they're wrong and that the Qur'an actually says this and not this, and they're like, Whaaa?
"I'm a firm believer that what someone takes as faith is the most precious thing in their life. But there's no religion that says, 'Go and kill people.'
"If you believe properly, as you should, I have a lot of respect for you."
He still hasn't seen his baby girl, Nahdyah, born two and a half months ago.
"I got 110 pictures of her on my computer. The day she was born I got blown up," he said, laughing again.
"I'll wait until she's about 15 or 16 and I'll tell her about the day she was born, and how Dad got blown up. She'll like that."
ANXIETY ATTACKS
He's going home for two weeks over Christmas. "My wife, Meaghan, I don't think she wants to hear about the stuff that happens to me. If I tell her everything she's gonna start having anxiety attacks.
"But I tell the truth if she asks me. I always tell her the truth. She always finds out from the news anyways."
He leaves Afghanistan in the spring. He doesn't know if he'll come back.
"That's not my decision. I have my own general at home. She says no, then the answer is no.
"I just wanna say hi to my wife Meaghan and my daughter Nahdyah, the rest of my family, my brothers and sisters, my parents, everyone else in Ottawa and New Brunswick. I'll be home in 12 days."
