Our excellent troops and equipment in Afstan

Another illuminating piece by the Globe's Christie Blatchford (pity we don't have any helicopters or close air support of our own though). Note especially what they are learning and its effect on the Army.

Brigadier-General David Fraser, who seems a shy and introverted man, said this a couple of days ago just after the microphones were turned off. But I think he will forgive me quoting it here anyway, because of the affection for his troops it reveals: “God bless those little buggers.”..

Laurels...the Canadian battle group here has earned in spades, so much so that two PPCLI companies, slated to return after a mission in Helmand province, were diverted to another dangerous part of the province. With their light armoured vehicles — the now-famous LAVs manufactured in London, Ont. — and honed fighting skills, they are in hot demand by their coalition partners.

Indeed, this Afghanistan mission and the collective Canadian performance is widely regarded by senior military leaders, and those who observe them, as a landmark, institution-altering one.

As Royal Canadian Military College professor and military historian Sean Maloney — a rare bird in that he is in Kandahar watching first-hand the very subject, contemporary warfare, that he teaches — said the other day, “What you saw here is a seminal event in Canadian military history.

“You saw a battalion-level combat operation that was executed very well. And this was a battalion, not just infantry, but logistics. ... It was a real combined effort, logistics, maintainers. It is a unique event...”

Colonel Tom Putt, the 47-year-old reservist who is the deputy commander of Task Force Afghanistan (Canada's overall operation here), said in a recent interview that the experience will have “a huge impact on how the army is going to operate for the next decade. There are so many positives.”

He quickly rhymed off some of them: Canada was the first nation to use in the field the newest big M-777 howitzer guns; in the LAVs, Canada has the best family of vehicles here; Canada was the first to put into theatre the Nyala, or RG-31s, with the new automatic weapons system that allows the crew to fight from inside; Canada leads the small but highly sophisticated base hospital.

“Canada's playing in the big leagues now,” he said. “We are the best-equipped ground force here. ... Everybody wants us.”..

“These kids adjust to the technology so fast,” Col. Putt said. “The whole chat-room concept is invaluable in command and control. In the old days, command was one guy in one place, sitting before a big screen directing things.

“Now it happens simultaneously on five different screens, with officers and NCOs chatting to each other ... sometimes not one word is said, but ‘Meet me in chat room X.' We of the caveman generation were wringing our hands at the thought, but it's all happening in chat rooms, and the captains and sergeants are the ones.”..