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Feb 26, 2009

Capt. Wesselo, a former Uxbridger now a helicopter pilot with the Canadian Forces, was assigned to Afghanistan for the first time in mid-December.

Spring storms

I was recently asked by my future mother in law what I missed most from home, other than Heather. The question caught me off guard, mostly because I hadn't really thought about anything else. I thought about it for a bit, and it was pretty hard to come up with something I really missed that didn't involve my fiancé or my family. I do, however, miss my car. Driving down a country road with the windows down, music up, and wind blowing is definitely one of my favourite things to do on a sunny summer day. Mountain biking and swimming were the other things I could think of, but since I met Heather, I've always done these things with her, so I'm not sure if that really counts! I also miss windows. It seems like a funny thing, but living in a tent with no windows, and working in a building where the windows are always shuttered makes you want to get outside as often as possible. You can be working inside for a few hours in the evening, then suddenly you go outside and it's dark and you realize you completely missed the transition from day to night. It can be a little disorienting sometimes.
The weather here is incredibly varied. The morning can be clear and chilly (for the desert), then the afternoon can bring dust storms and hot, heavy wind. I've now experienced my first proper dust storm. I was awakened at 3 a.m. by the roaring wind and violent shaking of the tent, so I decided to poke my head out the door, since there are no windows in our canvas walls. I honestly thought my tent was going to be blown off its footing. It felt like there was a giant giving the tent a noogie! You couldn't see more than 100 metres in better than 40 knot winds, but the strangest thing was the random enormous drops of rain that smack your cheek, dry almost instantly, and leave a splotch of dust behind. Garbage and debris was flying by like something out of the Wizard of Oz. When the dust picks up like that, just walking the short distance from a shower trailer back to your tent makes you feel like taking a shower again, the dust just gets everywhere. Afghanistan also gets some pretty dramatic lightning storms, again an odd phenomenon because there is often little or no rain associated with them, just gusty wind, towering clouds and lots of thunder. They look spectacular at night against the dark sky.
Kandahar province is slowly acquiring a green tint. The spring crops are in the ground and growing, and the farms are being worked feverishly. We often joke that everything here moves at the “speed of Afghanistan”, but its surprising how many people you see working in the fields. The tragic part of the spring is when you see workers focusing on poppy fields and leaving food crops and grape vines untended.
I'm getting sick of ramp ceremonies. Even though you know there will be more to come, you begin to hate every notification just a little more each time. Especially for helicopter crews, you wonder if the outcome would have been different if we had been with that convoy on that day over that particular section of road. We hear so often that there can never be enough escort in theater, the mere presence of helicopters is a deterrent to violence. It's frustrating that Canada can only field such a small aviation force, compared to the capabilities of our brothers and sisters from Britain and the United States. And yet, we know that our small group has had a significant impact on all the Canadian troops. They still seem to pause and smile at the Maple Leaf on the side of the helicopter. We're working hard as always, 'getting the job done' as it's said. But it doesn't seem to make the death of a fellow soldier, Canadian or otherwise, any easier to take.