Thanks

I word of thanks to everyone for your support. I can not stress this enough. The signs and symbols of support are to be found everywhere throughout the Petawawa community. Included below is a letter that I wrote, around the 5th month of my tour. It was at a point when everything was starting to calm down and Taliban activity started to subside. We were still taking casualties and on the particular day that I wrote this letter, we had lost a soldier in strong point north, who had inadvertently stepped on a land mine losing his foot. It was a moment of time where I needed to vent and at the same time to put things in perspective. Many of you have already read the letter and it still to this day conveys my thoughts and feelings.

"I apologize for the generic letter but these days I don’t have a lot of time to sit at a computer drafting specific words of thanks to all the people who have offered me overwhelming support. All of you mean the world to me and so your support is not only appreciated but quite honestly sustains me through some of the worst days of my life. Bar none this is an experience that I will never forget and has changed me in so many ways.
I have been ambushed, attacked, bombed, mortared, mined and RPG’d to the point that I honestly can not wait to get home. I have showered only 7 times in the 4 months that I have been here, gone through 4 changes of clothes and have lived out of a small valise. I have only slept 6 nights having taken my boots off the whole tour. Every night I have slept under the stars (until recently when it started raining) and each night I have seen at minimum one shooting star in a truly impressive Afghan skyline.
Half of our company has been wounded and of 120 men the enemy has killed 6. Of the wounded some of the most severe have endured the loss of limbs, paralysis in parts of the body and in one case he is learning to read and write again. The enemy is real and a brutal enemy he is. Never have I believed more in a cause and each and everyday I believe in it more.
Our enemy uses children to fight its battles and as shields, it coerces, threatens, blackmails, steals, sells opium and represses women. It murders people such as elderly men simply because they associate with us and they corrupt a religion holding it hostage. They are uneducated, and illiterate but certainly not stupid. They place their mines strategically and wage a war of terror so that the locals live in fear. Most of the Taliban are foreign, and use the local population for their purpose but do not care for their well-being. They force the locals on missions with absolutely no chances of success and accuse them of being bad Muslims when they question it. They have no hesitation in causing massive civilian casualties if it only results in one coalition dead.
As much as it is a sin to kill your fellow man it would be a bigger sin to let the Taliban have freedom of action in a country that does not want the return of the Taliban (call it a form of divine justice). Contrary to what the media believes, Afghans do support the coalition, and we must support them. There is no shortage of people that are willing to die for their cause but I am thankful that those people choose to fight here against us rather than in Toronto or Ottawa. It would be ridiculous for me to think that they could be successful in doing this but I believe that certainly a few could.
As for the development of this country, Canada and reporters in general have it wrong. The west will not rebuild this country, Afghans will and are doing it each day. The west can do well to facilitate the process, but it is becoming clearer that in the areas that we are operating, international agencies are reticent to help. My message to them is to get off their soapbox and take some risk. Regardless of the situation, progress and development are continuing particularly in parts of the country where there is no fighting. For a media that is focused on our particular area of operations they forget about the progress occurring around the country. The Taliban has massed around us and we are willing to take on that burden.
I guess that the purpose of this letter is two fold. The first is to thank all of you for the overwhelming support that you have given me. From the cards to the care packages, it has a profound impact on what we do over here. Secondly I also want you very much to believe in what Canada is doing here in Kandahar. Canada at an international level has stepped up and is taking a leadership role in NATO for the first time that I can remember. We are doing what is right, not what is easy. It is important that we carry the load at least until the end of our mandate at which time we can let someone else take the lead. You have made this possible, and we should all be very proud to be Canadian right now.
Currently and for the foreseeable future we are committed to seeing the construction of a road…. A simple road…. But a road that has cost us 7 soldiers including two soldiers from my Company, Sergeant Darcy Tedford and Private Blake Williamson. I am so proud to be with soldiers like these and am happy to report that they have represented us all so well. The rest of us will stand here on this road with our Afghan brothers, and this road will get finished.
Thank you all for all that you have done, each and everyone of you have made me a better person and it is important that you know that. I have been raised as most other Canadians, with a sense of duty and fair play. That is directly related to the relationships that I have had with my family, my community and my country. Thanks for everything."

Pro Patria.
(For Country)

Steve