“INCOMING, INCOMING!”
It’s the sound of the automated public address system warning soldiers like Kevin Pankiw of an attack.
The air smells of human fecal matter, it’s been shoveled on to asphalt-as per norm in Afghanistan-and since turned to dust.
“INCOMING!”
This is not a drill.
The automated voice foreshadows a rocket attack on the camp where Pankiw is stationed.
It’s 2013, and he’s a twenty-year-old infantry soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) on a mission in Afghanistan. It’s hot, and the soldiers here, including himself, are all “dressed like snowmen" Pankiw said. It can get as hot as 50 degrees Celsius, but the soldiers have no choice with their heavy dress. They have a lot of equipment to carry and they're in full combats.“As soon as you step outside, you’re sweating,” he said.
His job in Afghanistan is to guard the colonel, a high ranking military officer in the CAF. He’s on a team with three other soldiers. Sometimes, the job of guarding high ranking officials pays off with delicious local food, like naan bread with sugar on it.
“We all had little radios, probably what you’d see with the president on TV, with the sunglasses, and the little ear pieces, kind of the same thing but not as cool,” he said.
Pankiw is carrying a C8 rifle. His job is to scan the area and look out for people who may look suspicious, or like they are carrying a weapon.
“We’d always get out scan the area first, then bring out our entourage that we’d be protecting, let them do whatever business they had to do, and then make sure that the area was secured at all times,” he said.
Still, Pankiw, who joined the army at 17, said he wasn’t scared. There wasn’t much combat on the mission he was on.
“The only nagging factor, something that made you nervous over there was just the unknown,” he said. “IED mines-improvised explosive devices, could go off pretty much anywhere, anytime, and that was still a [constant] threat.”
And, there’s also the sirens. The “incoming” call comes sometimes, signaling an attack. It rings unwelcomingly throughout the camp.
When the siren goes off, “You duck and wait until the incoming is called clear,” Pankiw said. “If you were caught in the open you could run to a bunker, they had concrete bunkers throughout the camp.”
Pankiw said that the enemy would use old artillery shells as their weapon, but their aim was often off.
“The tricky buggers, they’d go up to the mountain [located in Agar], prop it up on a rock on an angle, and just kind of guesstimate where the camp was,” he said. “Then [they] set it on a homemade timer like an egg timer or something, and they could skedaddle and wait for it to go off.”
Sometimes, a rocket would get near the camp, but most often they just went off into the middle of the desert.
Pankiw, now a Sergeant, was a newly promoted Corporal when he boarded the first plane on route to Germany, his final destination Afghanistan. The civilian plane dropped them in Frankfurt, where they switched to a large military plane going to Kuwait. They switched planes once more before taking a helicopter to the camp.
“It wasn’t like the movies where we jump out of a plane with a big red light and somebody is yelling go go go,” he said. There were no Canadian casualties during Pankiw’s mission from June 2013- March 2014.
And, although it’s been four years since he was in Afghanistan, there are still some long lasting effects from the time he spent there as a personal security detail (body guard.)
There’s certain smells that trigger him.
The smell of fecal matter.
Pankiw said that every town had a dried up river bed where all the sewage from their homes and outhouses were thrown into. Then, when it piled up, they would throw it onto the asphalt (which was often the main roads) where it would dry up and turn to “poo dust.”
Even things like going to a restaurant.
“To this day when I go to a restaurant I like to have my back to the wall so I can see all the entrances and exits,” he said.
It’s the sound of the automated public address system warning soldiers like Kevin Pankiw of an attack.
The air smells of human fecal matter, it’s been shoveled on to asphalt-as per norm in Afghanistan-and since turned to dust.
“INCOMING!”
This is not a drill.
The automated voice foreshadows a rocket attack on the camp where Pankiw is stationed.
It’s 2013, and he’s a twenty-year-old infantry soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) on a mission in Afghanistan. It’s hot, and the soldiers here, including himself, are all “dressed like snowmen" Pankiw said. It can get as hot as 50 degrees Celsius, but the soldiers have no choice with their heavy dress. They have a lot of equipment to carry and they're in full combats.“As soon as you step outside, you’re sweating,” he said.
His job in Afghanistan is to guard the colonel, a high ranking military officer in the CAF. He’s on a team with three other soldiers. Sometimes, the job of guarding high ranking officials pays off with delicious local food, like naan bread with sugar on it.
“We all had little radios, probably what you’d see with the president on TV, with the sunglasses, and the little ear pieces, kind of the same thing but not as cool,” he said.
Pankiw is carrying a C8 rifle. His job is to scan the area and look out for people who may look suspicious, or like they are carrying a weapon.
“We’d always get out scan the area first, then bring out our entourage that we’d be protecting, let them do whatever business they had to do, and then make sure that the area was secured at all times,” he said.
Still, Pankiw, who joined the army at 17, said he wasn’t scared. There wasn’t much combat on the mission he was on.
“The only nagging factor, something that made you nervous over there was just the unknown,” he said. “IED mines-improvised explosive devices, could go off pretty much anywhere, anytime, and that was still a [constant] threat.”
And, there’s also the sirens. The “incoming” call comes sometimes, signaling an attack. It rings unwelcomingly throughout the camp.
When the siren goes off, “You duck and wait until the incoming is called clear,” Pankiw said. “If you were caught in the open you could run to a bunker, they had concrete bunkers throughout the camp.”
Pankiw said that the enemy would use old artillery shells as their weapon, but their aim was often off.
“The tricky buggers, they’d go up to the mountain [located in Agar], prop it up on a rock on an angle, and just kind of guesstimate where the camp was,” he said. “Then [they] set it on a homemade timer like an egg timer or something, and they could skedaddle and wait for it to go off.”
Sometimes, a rocket would get near the camp, but most often they just went off into the middle of the desert.
Pankiw, now a Sergeant, was a newly promoted Corporal when he boarded the first plane on route to Germany, his final destination Afghanistan. The civilian plane dropped them in Frankfurt, where they switched to a large military plane going to Kuwait. They switched planes once more before taking a helicopter to the camp.
“It wasn’t like the movies where we jump out of a plane with a big red light and somebody is yelling go go go,” he said. There were no Canadian casualties during Pankiw’s mission from June 2013- March 2014.
And, although it’s been four years since he was in Afghanistan, there are still some long lasting effects from the time he spent there as a personal security detail (body guard.)
There’s certain smells that trigger him.
The smell of fecal matter.
Pankiw said that every town had a dried up river bed where all the sewage from their homes and outhouses were thrown into. Then, when it piled up, they would throw it onto the asphalt (which was often the main roads) where it would dry up and turn to “poo dust.”
Even things like going to a restaurant.
“To this day when I go to a restaurant I like to have my back to the wall so I can see all the entrances and exits,” he said.