Conquist, Stefan: my experience with the National Support Element in Afghanistan, 2009-2010 (March 10, 2014)
Interviewee: Conquist, Stefan
An interview/narrative of Stefan Conquist's experiences serving with the National Support Element in Afghanistan. Interview took place on March 10, 2014.
ABSTRACT: Narrator: Stefan Conquist, b.1987. Title: “My Experience with the National Support Element in Afghanistan, 2009-2010.” Interviewer: Interviewed by Sarah Fitterer Interview Date and Location 10 & 17 March 2014, Victoria BC. Synopsis: (1:03- 4:20) Begins with Conquist’s reasons for joining the Canadian Reserve Forces. (4:23- 9:05): Discusses earlier training and reasons for volunteering for deployment, and the DAGing process. (9:22-17:40) Discusses his pre-deployment training (17:45-28:20) He moves on to discuss his deployment and initial days in Kandahar, including additional training. (28:35-36:57) He describes in greater detail living and working on KAF, including relationships with the ANSF and other members of the NATO coalition. (37:22- 42:53) He moves on to explain the places his FPP was responsible for, including Camp Nathan Smith, Mas’um Ghar, FOB Wilson. (42:54- 46:30) He briefly discusses an incident with a vehicle striking an explosive and related SOPs (46:32- 54:45) He moves on to discuss specific issues affecting Conquist’s job, such as the destruction of Tarnak Bridge and a volatile vehicle accident situation with ANP fatalities. (54:54- 1:03:05) He moves on to discuss his different duties as a LAV gunner and a dismounted soldier. (1:03:13-1:13:37). He discusses a casualty incident in January 2010 when he was on patrol in a LAV. (1:13:50-1:16:12). He goes back to discuss the first time he went on patrol outside the wire. (1:16: 25- 1:21:46) He moves on to discuss his role in doing recovery after the Dec 30 2009 IED strike that resulted in 5 Canadian casualties. (1:22:30- 1:27:02) Conquist continues on to discuss the relationship he had with his platoon, including senior commanders. (1:27:05-1:31:11) He goes on to discuss his relationship with members of the Regular Infantry. (1:31:18-1:33:35) He discusses the increase of American troops in Kandahar and how that influenced FPP’s role. (1:33:35-1:47:18) A conversation between interviewer and Conquist about existing discourse on Afghanistan and potential ‘lessons learned.’ (1:47:34-1:52:51) Conquist discusses his HLTA and his return to the theatre. (1:52:57- 1:58:28) He goes on to discuss the recreation he engaged in at KAF when off-patrol. (1:58:34- 2:05:24). Conquist then reflects on his final departure from Kandahar and decompression in Cyprus. (2:05:30- 2:15:33) He discusses his return home to Canada, including reintegrating with his reserve unit. (2:15: 39- 2:22:24) Conquist reflects on how his position towards the Canadian Forces has evolved and his overall evaluation of the mission to Afghanistan. (2:22:29 – 2:32.45): He offers a few final remarks, including the importance of a land army presence. Follow this synopsis with a short time log of the interview, including time codes and a single sentence describing individual topics that were discussed. For example: 0:00 – 2:35 – Growing up in Peterborough and his family’s reaction to enlistment. 2:35 – 7:00 – Training at Camp Borden, weapons training and deployment overseas. 7:05 – 15:00 – Life in Aldershot, England, anecdote about the civilians. 5:00 – 20:00 – Life on the frontlines, German Sniper attacks, D-Day, Caen. Suggested Clip(s) for Archive: Did any section of the interview stand out as being particularly remarkable and worth quoting or having transcribed? If so, provide the time code and a brief description. For example: 8:30 – 11:30 – Description of the attack on Carpiquet airfield. Subject Key Words General list of the topics covered in the interview – just the basics and keywords. Provide a list of names, places, organizations, campaigns, or other significant historical events discussed in the interview. For example: Canadian Reserve Forces; artillery; DAG; National Support Element; Force Protection Platoon; Nanuk RWS; Kandahar Airfield; Tarnak Farms; Suicide Vehicle Borne IED; Camp Nathan Smith; Mas’um Ghar; Dand District Centre; Sperwin Ghar; IED Dec 30 2009; ANP; FOB Wilson; LAVs; RG-31s. Quotes/Points to follow up on 1) 4 min in: “I have a great attachment with my unit, you know? I have a family here, a home here.” 2) 9:30ish: Force Protection Platoon: “has specific roles and responsibilities within the greater framework of the operation, and I had to not only learn these but I had to learn relevant skills which would allow me to help complete these, because to a certain degree, you don’t just join the Force Protection Platoon, you are going to be the Force Protection Platoon. So that involved me learning a lot of skills that I had no prior knowledge of.” (eg. light and medium machine guns, armoured vehicle gunnery, Remote weapons station) 3) 11: 45ish: Re the Nano RWS (newer system) “I had some serious misgivings about it as a weapons system in certain fundamental ways, and the training was important because it helped me get around what I think were shortcomings with the system at the time. It was a very new system and we were going to be the first unit to use it ever in an operational theatre.” 4) 13:12: Misgivings cont’d: the ballistic trajectory seriously different from further distances. Nano has a camera meaning you can only ever look where the weapon is pointing. You’re going to be looking up, the trajectory will be right, but you won’t be able to see the target. “As a modern soldier…you have to be accountable for every single bullet, even from something like a machine, so not seeing the target is unacceptable when you are in an armoured vehicle.” 5) 19mins: Start working the second you arrive- running around collecting kit before finding accommodation 6) 20:30ish: First days : “training actually doesn’t stop. You’re always brushing up on your skills when you have a spare chance, even when you’re in KAF, even when you’re overseas.” Such as IED-hunting. 7) 21:30ish: Inside wire: Was surprised at the size of KAF (including a sewage pond). Outside wire: the environment, loads of taxis (“under the Taliban, it was illegal to own a private vehicle unless you owned a business”). Big part of job was managing vehicle traffic (defensive and navigational) – looking for SVBIED. 8) 29:10: “We are the delivery crew…led us to work with a wide variety of people…for example, we made a lot of friends with RAF Airforce Security…” – made friends with people from different nations. “The hardest people to deal with, obviously, are the Afghan National Forces because they have a very different relationship to the country, the conflict, local communities and you can’t , as NSE, you’re not really building that same kind of relationship with the Afghan National Security Forces…as you are in the Provincial Reconstruction Team… or the Operational Mentor Liaison Teams…the NSE… I would say we were much closer to the other Allied forces than we were to the ANSF, but we still dealt with them quite frequently” both in and out of the wire. 9) 31:30ish: “Americans were heavily focused on heavy firepower – they had weapons that the Canadians didn’t have eg. automatic grenade launchers. “In our case, we were a little bit more limited in ammunition and a little bit more limited in weaponry, and so we didn’t shoot quite as often , but we focused on more differential training, like different contexts, we’re working on different tactics. We can’t, you know, blow the hell out of a single target constantly all day to reinforce how to use this weapons system, so we have to approach it from, I would say, slightly more creative angles, like attacking it with smoke, attacking it at different ranges, attacking it at concert with different ranges… we maybe don’t have as much as they do , so we’re forced to be a bit more creative with the way we apply it.” 10) 34:00ish “You’re basically spare labour” – when FPP wasn’t on patrol, but was in the base (eg. going out to meet a plane at 2am to load a broken vehicle onto it). “There are people who have much much harder times outside of the wire than that, but at KAF, you can almost always expect to get grab for this wrandom work and these random jobs, which is a little bit annoying sometimes because you want to focus on your main job, which is what you are there for… but that’s the nature of military operations…KAF also has a higher level of discipline…thre are people who will care considerably more about your dress and deportment, about how you’re marching, about how you conduct yourself, which means it’s a more uptight environment… and that can be a little annoying…it is still mission oriented… but it’s a little like living in garrison too…which you thought you would leave back in Canada… but these are relatively minor things.” 11) 40min: “There is only so much you can do with a Chinook, which is the entire reason why you have a supply and transportation division that’s based on the ground with armoured trucks and people like us, FP, to guard them. There were Chinooks…but they couldn’t quite replace what we could do.” – eg, moving a tank. 12) 41 min: “You’re entering an area of Panjwaii district that is way more dangerous, so this where you had to start being on your toes and we actually did strike…there was a vehicle in front of the convoy that struck a mine or a small explosive…and that was a big wake up call one day that this place is fundamentally different in character than the other places we’ve been to.” 13) Sperwin Ghar: “They faced attack very frequently…that is when you were really entering bandit country…which is sort of…the closest to there being a front line region in Kandahar. 14) 45ish: “We had a fairly quiet set of patrols.. we never got hit by an IEDs, that mine incident…is the only single thing where our vehicles took damage, we never came under any serious small arms fire, we basically managed to deliver almost everything we had generally on time and we avoided conflict whenever possible… we basically stay out of it if we don’t need to be a part of it… we can deliver what needs to be delivered without getting involved in a battle that will hold us up potentially for hours.” Credits engineer teams for their IED work, keeping convoys safe. 15) 53ins re: ANP accident with mass casaulity and what was going through his mind : “Thinking about my drills but also thinking about what’s going to happen next and how can I make that easier and this isjust an organizational thing…the way I approach problems, I really don’t want to get overwhelmed and it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re dealing with so many different things…just trying to basically plan it out while I’m trying to get my vehicle in the right place and letting …the driver… know what’s going on. Trying to basically marshal your thoughts in a specific order so you can apply your training in a relevant. That’s what I like to think I did.” 16) 1:07ish – re: performing first aid on a farmer who had hit an IED “You have to look at the situation and …where is he losing the most blood? Is he entering shock?... You have to think about the different issues facing the casualty and trying to deal with them in the most pertinent or immediate way with the tools you have…You don’t often think about it in a bigger, maybe holistic or spiritual sense when you’re on the ground because you really need to focus on what’s happening right and in that case, it’s a specific set of problems or issues and I gotta use my training as best as I can, and if I’m not confident that my training can take me further….it’s a giant team. It doesn’t end with your section, your crew or your platoon…in this case, it ended with an American helicopter picking up… I really wasn’t expecting that. I was always expecting to get shot at, which is something that didn’t ever end up happening, but then dealing with a specific casualty from an IED that was originally meant to be for us, it did feel a little bit weird. But ultimately, it is something thaty ou’re prepared to deal with…being at Kandahar Airfield…helped steel my resolve a bit because ne of the other things I had to do was do ramp ceremonies…if that casualty incident had happened right at the beginning of my tour, I bet it would have affected me much differently but it happened over half way through so it was different. 17) 1:15 – feelings before going out wire first time “I was happy I would be getting to do something that was… actually part of the front lines of the mission. A number of other members of my unit have been overseas many before me and a lot in combat positions, battlegroup positions. And although the FPP in the NSE is not the battlegroup, it’s not the combat position, it is out in the area of operations, you are getting to see things, you are dealing with the local population, you’re dealing with the battlegroup, you’re dealing with KAF for better or for worse and I knew that…that would make it… I would feel better about having a tour like that than a tour where I was just staying in one place or inside the wire the whole time and I didn’t get a chance to see those things.” 18) 1:19: “That was a really tense experience…it was really disconcerting because they had died in a LAV RWS, which was the vehicle we were using now and it became obvious, well the Taliban knows just how big, the insurgents know just what kind of IED they need to make to completely tear open one of our trucks, so we’re like, yeah maybe we should go back to the RG-31s, but no we kept using both.” 19) 1:23: “My relationship with the FPP was a positive one, and that positive relationship made the tour a lot better, it made it a lot more bearable in a lot of ways, and I definitely think it was a major factor to me looking back at the mission and my time there as positively as I do now…I think one of the neat things was I was the only artillery soldier in the entire platoon…we weren’t that common…as a result of this, I did have some unique knowledge which definitely interested him (the platoon commander McEwan) because I’m also an artillery technician and that can be relevant…Lt McEwan recognizes that we might need to actually call down an artillery fire (???) and of all the people in the platoon, I’m the only person who is actually formally trained to do that… He was interested in what I knew as a soldier and the unique qualities I could bring to the team…” 20) 1:27: Re: relationship with the Regular Infantry “There were two who stood out…one of them was a sergeant, the other one was a master-corporal…so they were both leaders within the platoon… I think I got along fairly well with them. They obviously have a different outlook in certain ways, it was a little bit difficult to get people who were normally used to working in the Reg force in a platoon almost entirely of Reservists, but I feel most of the friction they felt wasn’t between the troops and them, rather it was between them and the people above them, which is the reserve officer and the reserve platoon warrant officer… whatever issues I observed in that whole thing, it happened up there. Between the troops and them, generally speaking it worked out okay. I even managed to get one of them on my side because…I was able to help him out with a computer and he treated me a lot better after that and I’m very thankful for it… (when asked how treatment changed). Distant, I would say, distant. You do your job and stay out of their way, they’ll tell you what to do and stay out of your way, that’s how it is. Over the course of the tour, you can generate a much closer and much better working relationship where you actually about what people are doing and how they’re doing it so you can actually help them achieve their goal or make it easier for them…” 21) Mostly didn’t feel like the Reg forces didn’t have any negative prejudice towards them, which made their job easier. 22) Story about the Greek guy offering hospitality, cultural exchange etc 23) Look at 2hr 15: onwards about changing position towards the military and evaluation of mission to Afghanistan 24) 2 hr 31: for flip side of misgivings about weaponry 25) “It does make sense when you are there, perhaps more than at any other time.” 56:30 – phone call!
Interviewer: Fitterer, Sarah
- In Collection:
- 1 sound recording (MP3)
- 33, 66
- 48.4359, -123.35155
- Original sound recording (AIFF) also available.
- Canadian Military Oral History Collection
- CS_802
- Special Collections Finding Aid: https://uvic2.coppul.archivematica.org/military-oral-history-collection
- March 10, 2014
- Digital sound recording in .mp3 format at 128 kbps and 44 kHz. Recorded in digital format by interviewer, technical and cataloguing metadata provided by JF and JP. Interview recorded in digital format for UVic Special Collections in 2014. Migration metadata by KD and MT.
- Rights
- This interview has been posted with the understanding that it may be used for research purposes only. Should the interviewee or their heirs have any objections to this interview being accessible on the Internet, it will be removed promptly. Contact UVic Special Collections for permission if using for other than research purposes: speccoll@uvic.ca
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