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I know most of you probably know this but, here is an article on it.....
Cdn troops leaving Bosnia
By JOHN WARD
OTTAWA (CP) - After 13 years, 25 deaths, hundreds of millions of dollars and more than 40,000 individual tours of duty, Canada is clearing out its military camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina and reducing its presence there to a handful of soldiers.
The last Canadian camp should be closed and packed by the end of November, about two weeks ahead of schedule.
"The fact that the Bosnia mission for Canada is getting smaller . . . should not allow it to be diminished in importance," Lt.-Col. David Laderoute, who will command the remnant left after the withdrawal, said in a phone interview Monday.
"The very fact that we are able to draw down our forces in Bosnia highlights that fact that this has been a very successful mission."
The fighting is long over. Local authorities are tentatively taking over the policing and security work done by outside soldiers over the years. The work ahead is the slog of rebuilding an economy and infrastructure.
Laderoute's 83 people will mostly handle staff jobs with the multinational force. It's a reduction of about 95 per cent from the late 1990s, when 1,800 Canadians patrolled much of the northwest of the region, keeping the peace and supporting humanitarian aid missions.
Operations in the region defined the Canadian military for more than a decade. The 40,000 tours of duty recorded there since February 1992 - many soldiers went two, three or even four times - was the equivalent of sending over the entire army. Twice.
The Canadians built a sprawling support base around a former agricultural college outside a town called Velika Kladusa, in the northwest of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
At its height, it was a bustling supply and maintenance centre housing hundreds of soldiers, engineers and supply staff. Surrounded by heaps of barbed wire and protected by guard towers, it held tonnes of supplies and equipment and dozens of vehicles, ranging from little Iltis jeeps to armoured personnel carriers, buses, pickups and bulky tractor-trailers.
It supported other bases in the country and provided the overall Canadian headquarters for the region.
Now, it's being dismantled by a team of 268 soldiers under Lt.-Col. Richard Prefontaine.
His people are shipping home more than 270 vehicles, eight helicopters and 279 cargo containers holding more than 1,450 tonnes of equipment and supplies.
They're not only packing, they're also cleaning up the grounds.
"We also have to bring the sites to what they were before and give them back to the owners," he said. "We have to do this and respect very severe regulations. We are using the Canadian regulations for the environment in order to make sure Canada is returning the sites in the same way we would in Canada."
Canada went into the former Yugoslavia as United Nations peacekeepers in February 1992, as civil war raged. They chafed in their camps, handcuffed by UN rules which allowed little room for intervention in the fighting.
In 1993 they did fight a bloody skirmish with Croat troops in an area called the Medak pocket, but that was the exception, not the rule.
In 1996, after the signing of peace accords in Dayton, Ohio, NATO replaced the ineffectual UN mission with a 60,000-member force that came with tanks, artillery and a robust set of rules that brooked no opposition.
The NATO force shrank over the years as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the region as a whole began to rebuild. By last summer, it was down to about 7,000 soldiers and Canada, there from the outset, prepared to withdraw all but a token force.
Cdn troops leaving Bosnia
By JOHN WARD
OTTAWA (CP) - After 13 years, 25 deaths, hundreds of millions of dollars and more than 40,000 individual tours of duty, Canada is clearing out its military camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina and reducing its presence there to a handful of soldiers.
The last Canadian camp should be closed and packed by the end of November, about two weeks ahead of schedule.
"The fact that the Bosnia mission for Canada is getting smaller . . . should not allow it to be diminished in importance," Lt.-Col. David Laderoute, who will command the remnant left after the withdrawal, said in a phone interview Monday.
"The very fact that we are able to draw down our forces in Bosnia highlights that fact that this has been a very successful mission."
The fighting is long over. Local authorities are tentatively taking over the policing and security work done by outside soldiers over the years. The work ahead is the slog of rebuilding an economy and infrastructure.
Laderoute's 83 people will mostly handle staff jobs with the multinational force. It's a reduction of about 95 per cent from the late 1990s, when 1,800 Canadians patrolled much of the northwest of the region, keeping the peace and supporting humanitarian aid missions.
Operations in the region defined the Canadian military for more than a decade. The 40,000 tours of duty recorded there since February 1992 - many soldiers went two, three or even four times - was the equivalent of sending over the entire army. Twice.
The Canadians built a sprawling support base around a former agricultural college outside a town called Velika Kladusa, in the northwest of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
At its height, it was a bustling supply and maintenance centre housing hundreds of soldiers, engineers and supply staff. Surrounded by heaps of barbed wire and protected by guard towers, it held tonnes of supplies and equipment and dozens of vehicles, ranging from little Iltis jeeps to armoured personnel carriers, buses, pickups and bulky tractor-trailers.
It supported other bases in the country and provided the overall Canadian headquarters for the region.
Now, it's being dismantled by a team of 268 soldiers under Lt.-Col. Richard Prefontaine.
His people are shipping home more than 270 vehicles, eight helicopters and 279 cargo containers holding more than 1,450 tonnes of equipment and supplies.
They're not only packing, they're also cleaning up the grounds.
"We also have to bring the sites to what they were before and give them back to the owners," he said. "We have to do this and respect very severe regulations. We are using the Canadian regulations for the environment in order to make sure Canada is returning the sites in the same way we would in Canada."
Canada went into the former Yugoslavia as United Nations peacekeepers in February 1992, as civil war raged. They chafed in their camps, handcuffed by UN rules which allowed little room for intervention in the fighting.
In 1993 they did fight a bloody skirmish with Croat troops in an area called the Medak pocket, but that was the exception, not the rule.
In 1996, after the signing of peace accords in Dayton, Ohio, NATO replaced the ineffectual UN mission with a 60,000-member force that came with tanks, artillery and a robust set of rules that brooked no opposition.
The NATO force shrank over the years as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the region as a whole began to rebuild. By last summer, it was down to about 7,000 soldiers and Canada, there from the outset, prepared to withdraw all but a token force.
Can you try to finish it please? I haven't fully read it yet..
