I do tend to good-naturedly rag on our cousins up north, but it’s all in fun.  Having met several Canadians here in Korea I can honestly say that in many ways they are just like normal folks.  Ok, I’m ragging again.

But on a serious note, this article on some Canadian troops doing important work in Afghanistan reminded me that we are brothers-in-arms and I do appreciate and respect their service and sacrafice.

Some excerpts:

Dusk was closing fast on a patrol of Canadian soldiers as they cleared a sector of this bombed-out, abandoned village. Suddenly, the puttering of a motorbike was heard in the distance.

The sound came as a surprise. The motorcycle was the first non-military vehicle they had heard since they moved in three days earlier to set up a new outpost here, about six miles southwest of the provincial capital of Kandahar.

“Take cover, boys,” the patrol leader shouted, as he and two other soldiers ducked behind a high metal gate into the compound on the right.

With the near-constant shelling of artillery in the area over the previous days, it was a safe bet that the rider was not just passing through. Chinese-made Honda motorcycles are the Taliban’s favorite method of transporting fighters and supplies around the Afghan battlefield.

With the sound of the motorcycle now just outside, the patrol leader and two soldiers sprang from their hiding place and blocked the road.

Two men were on a red Honda less than 50 meters away. A third followed on a second motorcycle just behind them. The soldiers yelled for the men to stop. The men jumped from the motorcycles and began to run.

The Canadian soldiers opened fire. Two of the men dashed through a gate in a mud wall to the left and into a field before they were cut down by other troops. The third man died in a hail of fire before he even made it off the road. He fell face down in the dirt and did not move again. The fusillade had lasted less than 30 seconds.

As darkness fell, a team of combat engineers moved forward to check the motorcycles and the bodies of the three men for booby traps. There were none. The other soldiers cheered and bumped fists when the engineers announced had found a 60 mm mortar tube, a base plate and four high-explosive rounds. The three men had definitely been Taliban.

“It’s been a good day, huh?” a sergeant said. His name, like the others, is withheld because of task force ban on identifying troops who kill or injure insurgents or civilians.

“Yeah, they were probably going to fire those mortars on us,” said another soldier. “We assured ourselves of a good sleep tonight.”