Guest Blogger: H. Christian Breede, Tells the Story Behind the Cover Photo of Going to War?

We are thrilled to have H. Christian Breede, co-editor of new release Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions, be our guest blogger. Christian, who is assistant professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada is also a serving infantry officer with the Canadian Army. In his blog post, he tells the story behind the photo that was used for the cover of the book and recounts some first-hand experience while serving in Afghanistan. Bit of trivia for you, he is one of the soldiers in the photo, can you guess which one? Read on to learn more!

Going to War?, one of the first titles in our new series Human Dimensions in Foreign Policy, Military Studies, and Security Studies Series, is a multi-disciplinary study on wartime decision-making, with a focus on how Canada and its allies engage in conflict. The book was co-edited with Stéfanie von Hlatky, assistant professor of political studies at Queen’s University and director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy.

H. Christian Breede

Within the military, we have – no surprise – specific and uniform ways of doing things.  How soldiers conduct operations both at home and abroad is governed by something called doctrine.  Part of Canadian Army doctrine, when soldiers are established in a defensive position like say a forward operating base (known as a FOB) dictates that soldiers, upon establishing their position, will conduct what are known as ‘clearance patrols.’  These patrols, conducted on foot and through the immediate surroundings of the FOB, are designed to ensure that we know what is going on in the area around the FOB.  It allows us to find observation devices and deter the proverbial enemy (whomever they are) from establishing observation posts close by.  We attempt to ‘clear’ the area around our FOB.  Especially in a built up areas like Kandahar city, where the FOB – in this case the Provincial Reconstruction Team’s Camp Nathan Smith – is close to other buildings, getting to know the neighbourhood is important, to say the least.

Upon my unit’s arrival at Camp Nathan Smith in the late summer of 2008, we discovered that these patrols were not being conducted.  Indeed, the prospect of sending soldiers out into the city on foot, without the protection of armoured vehicles was seen as excessively risky.  Why expose our soldiers in such a way?  Upon some consideration of this, we decided the risk was not only worth it, but that the more we conducted these patrols – meaning the better we got to know our neighbourhood – the less risky the patrols would become. Such patrols are supposed to reduced the risk to the FOB; that was the whole point of the patrols in the first place after all.  Following a few weeks of planning, we conduct our first such patrol and for simplicity’s sake, we made the patrols a named operation, calling them Operation DOORYARD.

Now, if anyone reading this is from the Maritimes, specifically Southern New Brunswick, the term ‘dooryard’ should be familiar.  For the rest, stand by for a quick lesson on the term.  I will admit however that this was a term that I only recently learned as I was born and raised in small-town Ontario and only became familiar with the East Cost Lifestyle after meeting the woman who would later become my wife in the summer of 2002.  The dooryard is that part of one’s property immediately outside the front door of your home.  Only then, after a very non-specific distance, does one enter the front yard and of course, the backyard is the area around the back of the home.  Indeed, the term is so widely used that a Fredericton micro-brewery has a popular summer ale (one of my favourites in fact) that is loving called Dooryard Ale.

All that to say, in the late summer and early fall of 2008, as our unit was based in Southern New Brunswick and indeed many of our soldiers called New Brunswick home, we felt that naming a series of patrols aimed at clearing the immediate area around our FOB as Operation DOORYARD seemed particularly apt.

So what does this have to do with the book that Stéfanie von Hlatky and I co-edited, recently published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, called Going to War?  Well, it all has to do with the cover photo.  In fact, the photo was taken on one of those Operation DOORYARD patrols.  The photo was taken on the 2^nd of November 2008 in the North-Central part of Kandahar city.  In the spirit of full disclosure, the speckle was added by the talented cover designer Will Brown, so I cannot take credit for that.  Moreover, the photo was taken by a good friend of mine and he was on the patrol with me as I am the person in photo walking beside the Afghan National Army soldier (I am directly beneath the ‘R’ in War).  The photo is however from my own collection and I know that the photographer would not mind.  I asked him to take some photos for me prior to the patrol.

These patrols normally lasted a few hours as we would try to not only become familiar with our neighbourhood, but also engage with the local population – the Kandaharis who called this part of the city home.  We conducted these patrols every few days, leaving the camp on foot.  As a bit of interesting information, all our soldiers were carrying between 40 and 60 kilograms of kit on these patrols (and it was 30-40 degrees Celcius to boot) so these patrols were no small task, to say nothing of ever present risk of improvised explosive devices, ambushes or both.

This particular patrol – in fact all of our Op DOORYARD patrols – were conducted without incident during our seven months in Kandahar city.  It would be a futile counterfactual exercise to try to determine if our strategy of patrols did indeed improve the security of our FOB but to be sure, we made our presence known.  Indeed, one of my most memorable events occurred on this particular patrol.  Like many units in the Canadian Armed Forces, women made up a small percentage of our roster and we have no barrier to service so several soldiers under my command that day happened to be female.  Indeed, one of our light machine gunners was female.  Returning to doctrine, our patrols are most often conducted in a staggered single file, and the last soldier in the line will be equipped with a light machine gun.  In the event of a incident – what we called ‘tics’ (an acronym for ‘troops in contact’) – it was nice to know that the back end of your patrol was covered with some significant firepower.  On this particular patrol, as we made our way through Kandahar city, the female soldier at the end of our patrol began attracting a small entourage of young girls, absolutely in awe that a woman would be given such a powerful weapon to wield and that she was seen as a fellow warrior alongside her male comrades.  It was a powerful statement that I have always since hoped would serve as a spark for meaningful change in the future.  Only time will tell.

So there you have it.  A simple image and indeed, I think one that is worth a thousand words (or 1 058 to be exact).

Learn more about Going to War?