Quote:
Originally Posted by maple_leaf_eh
I just remembered something. There was a huge investigation* after an Iltis patrol had a minestrike on a route that was arguably cleared and not cleared. That would be in the Jowz (sp?) Valley, near Kabul on Oct. 2, 2003. The section commander, Sgt. Robert Short, and another colleague, Cpl. Robbie Beerenfenger, were killed. The paperwork for the report will have photos! If you can figure out the name and contents of the report, then do an Access to Information request, off you go.
The Canadian legal requirement is to investigate all casualties and issue a report. In the beginning it was a big deal "to get to the bottom of this". Nowadays, I suspect the report is much less staff work. This brevity can be a problem if the death has unclear circumstances, like cowboy contractors also engaging the enemy in the area. But that is another story.
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That entire report is available open source online. As for the who, what, when, where, and why, is probably better left for another time. As a Combat Engineer, I can attest that it quite literally changed the way we did business, until we rolled into Kandahar anyway. Basically in a nutshell, we had to change our terminology from "Proven or Cleared Route" to "High, Medium or Low Risk Route" and adjust a whole bunch of procedures to align with the Route Threat Level catagorizing system. It was a risk adverse time when you still had to check to make sure people had their Ballistic Plates in their vests
and sadly, a Casualty had to be "someones fault" rather than balancing risk with mission objectives. IMO, the Iltis had ZERO to do with it, and as it turned out, it didn't take long for the Up Armoured G-Wagons to be labeled "Widowmakers" either. In its final stages, determining who was riding in what was almost like drawing straws. That too is another story
