A veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who now resides in 100 Mile House, is willing to share some of his insight into army life in the 21st century.
Born and raised in Lethbridge, Alta., Pte. Bradley Hartwell was working in a Calgary lumberyard in 2007 when he signed up with the military as a personal challenge.
Seeing so many other young Canadians serving in Afghanistan in the news and feeling fit and able, Hartwell says he wondered if he could do it, too.
He adds it offered him “a nice job with regular pay.”
After completing basic training and infantry qualifications, Hartwell began his “work up” training for Afghanistan at the 1 Princess Patricia (1PP) Canadian Light Infantry in Edmonton.
This on-the-job training involved plenty of live-fire exercises to fine tune skills for the infantry role, and he notes it was also a good chance to get to know the unit and its idiosyncrasies.
On Oct. 10, 2009, Hartwell left Canada to fight in Afghanistan.
His first stop was in Kandahar, which he deems as the “safest place in the world to be” at the time, but Hartwell explains he didn’t stay there long, as the infantry’s job is done “outside the wire.”
A small outpost southwest of Kandahar in the Panjwai province was to be home base for the young private for much of his time serving oversees.
From the outpost, his unit performed patrols in the surrounding region disrupting insurgent activity and finding and clearing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), he says.
Also known as a roadside bomb, the IED is a homemade explosive constructed and deployed with unconventional methods.
These are often simply jugs filled with volatile fertilizers, but are no less dangerous, and he adds the delicate task “really rattles you and makes you think.”
When Hartwell and other members of his unit were guarding one IED they’d found and were waiting for the bomb removal team, he explains they had a near miss with tragedy.
“We were shot at with a rocket-propelled grenade.”
The infantry soldier adds he and his comrades-in-arms frequently found explosive devices when returning along routes they had only just travelled, giving him much pause for thought.
A soldier’s fear of injury or death is worse at the beginning, he explains, and again near the end of a tour of duty when they all just want to make it home safely.
“The really bothersome thing is you never really see the enemy [in Afghanistan], so you become suspicious of the general population.”
Deployment through clandestine operations is “the new face of war,” he says, adding the days are long over where combatants confronted each other.
A poignant image Hartwell can still see in his mind’s eye is of the children living in mud huts playing happily, seemingly unaware of the lack of amenities that are plentiful and taken for granted in many other countries.
Another aspect the infantryman says he will long remember is of all the Afghan women over the age of 12 wearing burkas with their faces covered.
While oversees, Hartwell kept in touch with family and friends, mostly via his unit’s satellite phone and Facebook.
He now resides in 100 Mile House with his fiancée Caroline Plant, and works out of town on a rotating basis clearing trees near power lines.
Hartwell notes he took to the Armed Forces like a fish to water, and credits this to his experiences as a boy growing up in Alberta, including his family’s involvement with a black powder club.
“I grew up shooting muskets and throwing tomahawks.”
Hartwell adds he always felt somehow he’d end up in the military, but never intended it to be a lifetime career, as he says doing that takes a certain type of individual.
His experiences were profoundly unique and memorable, however, and he says joining the army changed his life to a decidedly better path.
Hartwell’s mother, Mickey Sloot, says she agrees the Armed Forces was a “very good thing” for her son and definitely steered him onto the right track.
“I’m glad he’s out now, saying goodbye to him in Edmonton was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
