Unqualified

Both tours to Afghanistan.

The first time I deployed with the provincial reconstruction team right in Kandahar city. I was a spare up until the last moment, when I was selected as a driver.

Not qualified to drive the vehicle they gave me.

I’m not saying I was incapable, but seriously, if I had been in an accident or someone got hurt because I wasn’t trained to drive that particular army car, I would have been at fault. Not the guy who ordered me to do it.

I ended up as a command post signaller because they only brought two guys. I guess their plan was to run them on 12 hour days for seven months. Oh well.

Second tour, I train as a command post technician and signaller and driver in an artillery troop. I was very good at all of these things. I put over a year of training into working with that team. I felt that I belonged. I’m excited to do my job.

I get to Afghanistan. That’s not your job. I’m put on a new team of people I didn’t know. I’m put at a desk where I’m in control of everything up to 5000 feet agl. I now have to have tight situational awareness of the entire Canadian area of operations, because I have to keep aircraft safe.

I’m deconflicting aircraft from each other, from artillery and ground activities such as ranges, BIPs, troop movements. That’s my job too, even though I have never trained to do these things.

So long story short, I was under some intense pressure. Very little confidence. Very little support.

I remember one night when things got crazy, and afterwards my supervisor, a warrant officer said to me ‘I’m glad you knew what to do, because I didn’t’. In all fairness, he was a fill in as well.

I made mistakes on both tours. I admit that sometimes the chaos was more than I could keep up with, but I kept everyone safe. I acted professionally, I kept my head above water.

I guess I think things would have worked out differently if I’d received proper training for the jobs I was going to do. I’ve blamed myself for years for not doing a perfect job, but I think that I did pretty good with what I was given. I’ve blamed myself for a lot, but I now realize these experiences happened to me. I didn’t seek them out.

You are not that,

You are of that.