125th Anniversaryof Dragoons and RCR

The public is invited to attend:

The 125th Anniversary Parade

of

the Royal Canadian Dragoons

and

Royal Canadian Regiment

on

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

at

9:00 a.m.

on

Parliament Hill

Ottawa

The parade will consist of two ceremonial guards of one hundred soldiers each. They will be parading in full ceremonial scarlet uniforms in front of the Parliament Buildings to recognize the 125 years of service to Canada during both peace and war.

Also parading on the Hill will be a Gun Troop from 2nd Regiment, the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery firing gun salutes with their 105mm cannons.

Music will be provided by:

the Canadian Forces Ceremonial Guard Band and

the 2nd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment Pipes and Drums.
Featured before and during the parade will be a series of static displays, showcasing the vehicles and equipment used by both Regiments throughout their history. The parade will conclude around mid-day with a march-past of the Regiments, and a roll-past of the vehicles as they move east along Wellington Street and continue past the National War Memorial and conclude at the Cartier Square Drill Hall for a post-parade reception.

Congratulations Dragoons and RCR!

Trooper Caswell's Ramp Ceremony June 14, 2007

14 June 2007 Kandahar, Afghanistan The Joint Task Force salutes as the body of fallen soldier Trooper Darryl James Caswell, carried by his comrades is slowly marched through the ranks and to the waiting C130 Hercules Transport plane. Trooper Caswell was a member of the Royal Canadian Dragoons Reconnaissance Squadron from CFB Petawawa and was part of the 2nd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment Battle group of Joint Task Force Afghanistan. He's on his way home.

Our Fallen Soldier - Trooper Darryl Caswell

It is with deepest sadness, we learn today that one of our Canadian Soldiers has fallen to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. We grieve and our hearts are heavy for the family and friends of soldier Trooper Darryl Caswell . Our hearts go out to the family - both here and in Afghanistan, their section and friends of our two wounded soldiers and our fallen soldier.

God Bless.

-

~Trooper Darryl Caswell~

To view or sign the guestbook for Trooper Caswell's family, click here:

http://www.legacy.com/GB/GuestbookEntry.aspx?&PersonID=89008051

Received: June 11, 2007 11:12 pm (Canada)
Canadian Soldier Killed, Two Injured by Roadside Bomb in Afghanistan
A Canadian soldier was killed today when a roadside bomb detonated near the vehicle he was travelling in, about 40 km north of Kandahar City. The incident occurred at approximately 6:25 p.m. Kandahar time (10:05 a.m. EST). Two Canadian soldiers suffered non-life threatening injuries from the blast. They have been evacuated by helicopter to the Canadian-led multinational hospital at Kandahar Airfield for further treatment and are expected to return to duty soon.

Killed was Trooper Darryl Caswell of The Royal Canadian Dragoons (RCD), based at Petawawa, Ont. Trooper Caswell was deployed in the south of Afghanistan with the RCD Reconnaissance Squadron as part of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (2RCR) Battle Group.

Trooper Caswell was part of a Combat Logistics Patrol (CLP) convoy, conducting a resupply mission for Canadian troops based at a forward operating base in Kahkrez when the incident occurred. The convoy was operating in support of the ongoing security efforts conducted jointly by the Afghan national security forces and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers in the northern region of Kandahar province. Family members of the deceased and injured soldiers have been notified.

Our priority at this time is to ensure that our wounded soldiers receive the best possible medical care and that the remains of Trooper Caswell are repatriated to Canada in the most dignified and respectful manner. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of our wounded and fallen soldiers.

Our Fallen Soldier

Canadian Soldier Dies in Afghanistan
(www.canada.com)
SHAHWALI KOT, Afghanistan — A Canadian soldier spearheading a convoy into the newest hotspot of Taliban activity was killed Monday night when a powerful mine ripped through his armoured car.
Trooper Darryl Caswell, 25, was driving the convoy's lead vehicle, a Coyote, as it hit the bomb en route to a remote NATO base in Kandahar province's Shahwali Kot district.
Two other crew members were hurt, including one who suffered inhalation burns in his throat, and were taken by helicopter back to the Canadian-led emergency hospital at Kandahar Airfield.
The medical evacuation occurred in the midst of the desert as night fell and troops spread out on a lonely rural highway to secure the area.
"They're cowards," the commander of another vehicle in the resupply convoy said of those who planted the mine.
"I have no respect for them or their way of life. We'll see what happens. But I suspect there will be some payback."
He said he saw two blasts, one after the other, from his Bison troop transport about seven vehicles behind the Coyote.
Col. Mike Cessford, deputy commander of the Canadian mission here, voiced his condolences to Trooper Caswell's family, and said bombing was typical of insurgents who are avoiding direct combat with NATO troops when possible.
"It is a tactical weakness," he said.
Moments after the explosion, soldiers spotted two Afghan men near the side of the road observing the wreckage, before disappearing into the barren landscape of mountain and sand.
Intelligence officers later intercepted cell phone communication among suspected Taliban making plans for an ambush of the convoy.
Other crew members from the Coyote, which has the nickname Ghostrider painted on its side, appeared badly shaken by the incident. "I just have no energy any more," murmured the commander as he struggled to climb into another vehicle.
A quick-reaction security force arrived and surveyed the scene, and army engineers ensured there were no other explosives nearby. Then, six hours after the blast, the convoy of about 12 vehicles headed back the way it came.
The trucks and armoured cars arrived at a remote Canadian base, also in Shahwali Kot, at about 4 a.m. Tuesday. The convoy had left Kandahar Airfield, the huge NATO base, at noon Monday, never reaching its final destination.
The wreckage of the Coyote was towed along with the convoy. The front wheels and undercarriage on the driver's side were completely blown off, and the tires on the other side badly mangled.
Trooper Caswell's flak vest was still inside the driver's mangled cockpit.Much of the rest of the vehicle seemed to be intact, though.
"They're chickensh—," said a soldier as he looked over the wreckage. "It's bullsh— when you have to play by the rules and they don't. I'm f—ing sick of it."
The convoy was supplying food, water, spare parts and other goods to the Hotel Company base and other "austere forward-operating bases," further north, where U.S. infantry and Canadian artillery units are based.
They returned to the area, largely abandoned by NATO for about a year, in the last several weeks and have encountered significant Taliban activity.

Canadian Soldiers Echo Hillier's Frustration with Focus on Detainees

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (CP) - A dog-eared letter from a young student in Canada is having greater resonance among Canadian troops at a remote outpost in Afghanistan than the political hand-wringing in Ottawa over Afghan detainees.
The letter, with coloured hearts around its edges, was written by a Grade 7 student in Toronto who was born in Kabul. It tells the story of a little girl whose family fled to Pakistan after being chased from their homeland by the Taliban. Once there, her one-year-old sister was kidnapped.
"My mom wanted a country that was safe and where I would be able to learn so we came to Canada," the neatly typed letter reads. "Thank you so much for trying to make my country a better place and tell your soldier friends that I said thank you."
In a place where a bomb or a rocket sometimes barely merits getting out of bed, the letter tugs at the heart strings of the battle-hardened men and women of the Royal Canadian Dragoons out on patrol in Afghanistan.

Many of the soldiers in Spin Boldak, a ramshackle outpost in southeastern Afghanistan just six kilometres from the Pakistan border, are barely aware of the political tremors in Ottawa over reports that Afghan prisoners have been tortured in prison after leaving Canadian custody.
But they feel acutely that most of their fellow Canadians at home are themselves largely oblivious to their efforts to improve the lives of ordinary Afghan people.
During his visit to Kandahar last week, Canada's top soldier, Gen. Rick Hillier, said in his typically blunt fashion that the soldiers are "pissed off" that the detainee controversy has dominated headlines at home.
"If they're pissed off about anything, it's that we are here and we're doing so much other good stuff, and nobody's talking about it now," said Maj. Steve Graham, reconnaissance squadron commander with the Dragoons, currently deployed in Spin Boldak.
"Everybody right now is focused on this (detainee) aspect which, for us, is really an incredibly small part of everything we've done."
Many soldiers, when asked whether they've ever handled a detainee, respond with a blank look or a shake of the head.
Some are largely unaware of the controversy that has gripped the House of Commons for two weeks since news broke of allegations that prisoners handed over by Canadians to Afghan security forces have been abused and tortured.
Cpl. Fernando Arduengo, 28, of Markham, Ont., acknowledged the significance of the detainee story and said he understands that it needs to be told.
"Yes, there's stuff that happens here that's really negative, but my personal opinion of it is we're doing a hell of a lot of good things, and for it to get sidelined - it kind of sucks that things happen that way," Arduengo said.
"My wish is that the stories that are covered are on the positive things that we do. What we're doing here is we're trying to establish peace and security for these people."
Reconnaissance Squadron has handled two detainees since they were deployed shortly after Christmas, Graham said. And while none of the soldiers want to see the rights of the prisoners violated, certain realities exist in a country such as Afghanistan, he added.
"We certainly don't want them to be tortured, we don't want them to be abused, we want a process to be followed the way there is at home," Graham said.
"Ideally, we want them to follow exactly the same rules and regulations that we have, but that's not going to happen. That's not the way this country is."
For Arduengo, the handling of detainees is simple: "Treat them the way you would like to be treated."
"If they took you down, we obviously know they wouldn't be nice - at all. But how would you like to be treated? I think that's how we go about it."
Graham said most soldiers know how the system in Ottawa works, and often what looks like a lack of political support back home is little more than an opposition party's effort to score points against the government.
"All the soldiers understand that in a democracy, that's the way it works," he said.
"As long as we're sent here and we're given the tools that we need to do the job here, political debate back home is fine, and that's a good thing in a democracy."
"As long as we're getting everything we need to do our job here - the job that we've been asked to come and do - I think the guys understand the way the system works back home."
Which is why, when it comes to catching up on current events, many soldiers prefer to get their news from a class of schoolchildren than from reading Canadian newspapers or watching television.
Sgt. Dave Camp, who commands a section of engineers attached to the Dragoons, said he has hundreds of letters of support from countless school kids in his home town of Shelburne, N.S.
He plans to hand-write replies to each and every one.
"I don't know - I guess it's my upbringing," Camp said. "I'll be awful disappointed in myself if I don't get it done."
Camp said he's only heard talk about the detainee controversy, but he said it's disappointing that it has overshadowed Canada's efforts to help the people of Afghanistan.
"That might be a bad thing ... but the cases of bad, if it occurred, is a fraction of the good that's being done," he said.
"If people are going to run with the bad, they're going to run with the bad. In the end, the good is still going on, and I'm still doing my job."

A Big HUA for Canada's Engineers!

Canadian Engineers Detonate Bomb

Near Pakistan Border

Rusty Bucket Packed With Explosives and Wired to a Black Battery Box .
By CP
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan — Canadian military engineers fought fire with fire Tuesday as they safely detonated a crude roadside bomb in a cloud of flame and smoke near this border town in southern Afghanistan.
The soldiers of Engineer Squadron, attached to the Royal Canadian Dragoons, tried in vain to use a remote-control robot to split apart the device — a rusty bucket packed with explosives and wired to a black battery box.
After severing the wires from a distance, the engineers and a team of explosive experts dispatched from Kandahar Airfield used their own high-powered explosive to reduce the device to little more than bits of rubble.
When it was over, all that was left was a hot, blackened crater in the middle of a parched, barren tract of land just a few kilometres from the Pakistan border.
As soldiers examined the charred hole, section commander Sgt. Dave Camp beamed with the satisfaction of a job well done.
“It was a good day,” Camp said. “It’s gone, and done, and nobody got killed.”
Bomb a work in progress
The device, which was reported Monday by a commander with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, was found above ground and well away from the road — unusual for an improvised explosive device, or IED, in Afghanistan.

That suggests whomever built the device was still in the process of preparing it when they were spotted, said Camp.
It’s also possible it was placed there in an effort to learn about Canadian tactics, he added.
“I’d have to say it was something that was in progress,” he said. “It’s an awful waste of valuable resources on their part to just let it go for the sake of watching us ... it was the start of something.”
Also Tuesday, a Canadian patrol that included soldiers from 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment and members of the Afghan National Army was attacked near the village of Howz-e-Madad, about 30 kilometres west of Kandahar city, a Canadian Forces spokesman said.
”The patrol was engaged by multiple insurgents using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades,” Lieut. (Navy) John Nethercott said in a statement.
The engagement lasted about three hours, the statement said. There were no Canadian or local Afghan casualties, and no word on how many Taliban insurgents were killed.
A similar attack lasting about six hours happened in the area on Monday, with no Canadian casualties reported.

Taliban Resources Depleting
In the last month, Canadian troops have reported a marked decline in the level of sophistication of many of the explosive devices they encounter, a sign that Taliban know-how and resources have been severely depleted in their ongoing battles with coalition forces.

“The stuff is there, but the talent and the knowledge base is fast disappearing,” Camp said. “The people that are coming in to replace them don’t have as much experience, and it’s taking them a bit longer to figure out.”

Canadian soldiers are back in the Spin Boldak district in a major way, in part to discover the routes insurgents may be using to move back and forth with relative ease across the Pakistan border.

It’s all part of an effort to disrupt the flow of Taliban resources into the country and up into those areas where they prefer to engage coalition forces: Helmand province and the Maywand, Panjwaii and Zhari districts of Kandahar province, west of Kandahar city.

“Not even a year ago, the only people in Panjwaii were the Taliban and it was outright war,” Camp said.

“Now you go, and there’s little girls going to school. That says a lot right there — not just little boys, but little girls going to school. To drive up and down those roads, there’s a lot of kids, and a lot of them are waving.”