Boerboel

Yup, that’s how you stand up for the Captain. Atta boy Podzy! 🥊

Canadian CEO, daughters shot and wife attacked with hammer as masked suspects invade their multi-million dollar Toronto home trib.al/h8lLwtf

Opinion: With talk of a hypothetical American invasion, Canadians should think about nonviolent resistance theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…

.@VeteransENG_CA says it didn’t have time to invite Afghan War vets to speak at ceremonial groundbreaking for National Monument to Afghan War dead. 40-minute ceremony heard from non-combatants including Minister @JMcknightDelta. blacklocks.ca/no-time-for-co… @VetsOmbudsman #cdnpoli

I’m in Calgary today meeting with Premier Smith and energy executives about our plan to protect Canadian sovereignty by securing Canadian energy. The Northern Shield Energy Corridor is at the heart of this plan, transporting Canadian energy in a pipeline made by Canadian workers using Canadian steel along an all-Canadian route. Find out more: ontario.ca/page/northern-shi…

PISA 2025: Canada by province. Alberta scores 503, 8th in the world, ahead of Hong Kong, the UK and New Zealand.

A sexually explicit rap video from Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew’s past has resurfaced, days after a Nova Scotia minister resigned over his own offensive lyrics. junonews.com/p/double-standa…

15 years ago Scott Shipway was killed by an IED that tore his LAV apart. Some of you knew and served with him. He was an exceptional leader and friend. Our company had just finished an operation and due to our proximity to the Red Devil Inn ( Gumbad area ) Capt Martin Larose ( coy 2ic ) was tasked with taking a patrol there for a resupply. It was a thrown together thing and I took a couple guys from our platoon and we rode in an Engineer crewed LAV to add guns to Larose's patrol. We got there and spent the night in Gumbad and left in the morning with our small patrol. About 10km away near the town of Pada Capt Larose's LAV struck an IED. It was car killer and tore his vehicle up bad. This area was the most heavily IED'd area in Afghanistan at the time. Immediately after the explosion we were ambushed from the surrounding terrain. We dismounted and attacked into it, over running them. Only then could we turn our attention to our casualties. Capt Larose had suffered tremendous wounds all over and was helped out of his hatch. The 2 men in back were also badly wounded as was the driver. But it was the gunner, Ryan Elrick who was in the worst shape. The blast had taken off his legs at the knees. As we extracted him from the turret he regained consciousness, and began screaming. He didnt stop screaming for the 2 hours it took to get a medevac helo to our location. The only comms we had was back to Gumbad ( the satellite phone in Larose's car was destroyed ) we started a 9-liner with them to pass up, and Scotty got on the radio and said he would mount up and get to us as fast as he could. About 30 minutes later we could hear gunfire on the far side of Pada and shortly after, Scotty arrived. He came with his single LAV. For those of you who've been there, you know that this isnt a thing that's done. He didnt care, people were hurt and nothing would stop him. He'd been attacked on his way to us, but kept coming. He brought their platoon Satellite phone and got a Dr from KAF on the line. We'd already put 2 tourniquets on each of Elricks legs and were dumping Quickclot onto the wounds every time the opened back up. With Scotty and Dr coordinating, Elrick was stabilized. We had no medic. Most of us had TCCC, and it was life saving, but no medic. Just having Scotty there, calmed everyone down. You just knew that you'd get through things if he was around. He was undefeatable. A force. theglobeandmail.com/news/nat… A few days later our company was in heavy fighting around Panjawaii. While leading an assault up to the roof of a compound, the taliban threw a grenade down at Scotty and his men. Scotty took the brunt of the frag, protecting his men. He continued up and wiped out the enemy who'd been holding the roof and suppressing his platoon. His boys bandaged him up but the bosses found out how severely he'd been wounded and forced him to medevac back to base. Once treated, he snuck out of the hospital and found a convoy coming out for resupply and made his way back to us that night. The staff at the hospital were 'displeased' with Scotty. But nothing and no one could stop him from getting back to his lads. I was blessed to know him, serve with him, fight beside him and know him as a brother. I think of him every day and the lives he saved.

This dude couldn’t invade a Canadian Tire if you give him a key, the alarm code, and a head start

I attended a county fair and watched a child sell a pig. The pig is worth, I am told, somewhere near four hundred dollars. I looked this up afterward because I did not believe what happened. The girl is twelve. She walked the animal into a ring wearing a white shirt and a numbered card. She had raised it herself, from a piglet, for nine months, which I confirmed, and she had a binder of records because the program requires one. The bidding began. Local men. A man from a bank. A man who sells tires. A woman who owns a restaurant I had eaten at the previous evening. It did not stop at four hundred. It stopped at three thousand two hundred. I turned to the man beside me and asked whether the pig was of exceptional quality. He said, "It's a fine pig." I asked whether it was worth three thousand two hundred dollars. He said, "No." I asked why the price was three thousand two hundred dollars. He said, "She's a good kid." I stood up. I could not remain seated. I said, out loud, in a metal building that smelled of animals, that a market which knowingly and deliberately misprices a good in order to put a child through a university, and does so every year, in the open, with an auctioneer and a microphone, is not a market at all but a rite, and that I have never seen a province conduct one so cheerfully. He said, "You want a lemonade?" I said that I did. Here is the part I had entirely misread. The men bidding against each other were not rivals. They were raising it together. The tire man bid, then the bank man bid, and the tire man nodded at him, and they were pushing the number upward on purpose, in public, in front of the girl. She knew. Everyone knew. The auctioneer knew. The rite requires that nobody says it. Afterward the girl shook every buyer's hand. She writes them letters later. That is also part of it. She writes letters. I asked the restaurant owner why she bids every year. She said, "Somebody bought mine." She is fifty-eight.

Aug 3, 2006, battle of the White School This isn’t a story about boy scouts or saints. It’s not a story about good guys and bad guys. It’s not an easy story to tell, even though the images of that battle are slashed across my memory every single day. It is a very Canadian story. I don’t care whether you think we should have been there or not. That’s political noise that the distance of space and time makes international strategists of us all. We were there, we fought, and we didnt care about politics. This recounting is about a fight. It was hot, dirty, terrifying, bloody, and noisy. It was so much more than that and I’m not sure I have the skills to convey it all. Over the years many of us who survived that cauldron have gathered and remembered what we experienced. Our lost brothers, our fear and what we faced in that place. As well as I have been able, I’ve spliced pieces of that day together from our communal accounts. Without doubt, imperfectly. I’m not sure any battle can be explained in any other way. It's difficult to know where to start this, so I will begin at the end. Within the military community many know about this day. If you knew someone who was there you might know a bit more about that day. But if you, like most people know nothing of the events, the end is an important place to begin. At the end of the battle four of our men lay dead. Sgt Vaughn ‘Iggy’ Ingram, Cpl Chris Reid, Cpl Bryce Keller and Pte Kevin Dallaire were killed. Another 16 men were either injured or wounded in the fight. When you take into consideration the totality of our forces that day, we had been hit hard. In our immediate area 9 Platoon and Recce Platoon had initially been deployed with Col Hope. There were also Engineer assets and an Artillery spotter attached. B-Coy was deployed not too far away and were in steady contact with the enemy during this time. I was with 2 Platoon and we had been placed on QRF in support of the operation. During the early morning approach to the school 9pl engaged several Taliban setting up an ambush. While the LAVs were repositioning, 33 struck an IED. Almost everyone in the car was wounded, and the driver, Cpl Christopher Reid was killed. I’d known Chris for most of my career and had become good friends with him during our time in Mortar Platoon together. In a Battalion of extra-large personalities, Chris was well known. He had a large soft heart that he loved to hide behind a sarcastic, crazy veneer. At one point during the tour the 25mm main gun on his vehicle had a malfunction while engaging the Taliban. While it was being cleared Chris opened his drivers hatch, and with his ever-present smoke hanging from his mouth began firing his pistol towards the closest enemy. It wasn’t long after when the Engineer LAV struck an IED on the same stretch of road leading to the school. Several more troops were wounded and needed evac. Somewhere during this timeframe, we received the Go orders back on KAF. We mounted up and began the roughly 25-minute move to the White School. We had heard some ragged details about what we were approaching. The IEDs and the losses where on everyone’s minds as we made our way to the fight. Our platoon like most, had seen heavy fighting in the preceding weeks. Some of which had been very near the White School. Our Battle Group had roughly 2 weeks to go in this 8-month tour. We were exhausted, mentally, and physically. We had just finished a lengthy operation where we’d been in TICs almost daily. Sometimes knowing what you’re getting into is worse than not knowing. That fear that lingers on the periphery started closing in as we made our way to the school. We arrived sometime around noon and moved to reinforce 9 platoon’s LAV gunline which was roughly 200m away from the school. The incoming fire from the Taliban positions near the school was heavy and coming from 3 sides. Our LAVs were spread out in a shallow arc and pouring 25mm and machine gun fire into the enemy. Elements from 9pl and recce were entrenched in some of the school’s outer buildings and were being attacked viciously. I kept my boys behind our LAV and ran over to my platoon commander, Lt Ben Richards to find out what was happening. Approaching the rear of any fight is chaos and it’s important to take a moment to get synced up before running off, adding to the chaos. The incoming fire was smacking into our LAV positions regularly, with the occasional RPG shrieking inbound at either the gunline or the men at the school. I found Ben ( Lt ) just outside Col Hopes CP tent, hanging off the back of his vehicle. Ben said we had work to do and pulled me into the CP. There were of couple of Engineers with sweat soaked blast gear leaning on whatever they could, guzzling water. Col Hope was standing by the map and had just briefed Ben on what needed to happen. Someone at the school had been shot and needed to be brought back to the gunline for evac. Ben went over the map quickly, asked if I understood what had to happen. I said “I’ll get the lads mounted up and move right now.” Col Hope broke in and told me that I would not take a LAV up that road, and that several IEDs were still active. He said that I “needed to move fucking fast” Col Hope is the best Senior Officer I’ve ever known. He’s not a large or intimidating fellow. Not overly loud or aggressive. But he is the definition of ‘command presence’. When he spoke, the largest, toughest men in any group would lean in just to make sure they could soak up what he was imparting. Calm, thoughtful and hyper intelligent. He had this way of making you want to be successful that most leaders don’t understand. He was a natural leader in war. He didn’t need to be there, especially so close to the fight. But none of us would have expected him anywhere else. It’s how he led. When he told me to “move fucking fast” he looked as though he wanted to come and knew he couldn’t. I said I’d handle it on foot and ran to my boys. I gathered the guys at the back of the car, told them we had to go up to the school and get one of the wounded back here for evac. Ben Emery ( my ginger ) began stowing the folding stretcher, and everyone made sure they were sorted out fast. Within a minute we were off and moving through the flank of the gunline towards the edge of the road that ran towards the school. It was mostly open ground across the 200m but there was a deep wadi cutting across part of it. I wanted to get into that wadi and use it as far as I could to approach the school with some cover. It was deep and muddy at the bottom, and even hotter if that was possible. As we approached the wadi, Sgt Cecil Paris ran up to me and asked to come along. Cecil was our acting W.O. and I was glad to have him with us. He was one of the toughest, most capable men I knew. He was also the W.O. and could do whatever he wanted. We soon encountered several dismounts from 9pl and recce, some suffering from severe heat exhaustion. The temperature crested 60c that day and for men wearing 80lbs in kit while fighting, the heat can also kill you. Cecil immediately began working to remove those casualties back to the CCP (casualty collection point)

Tell me what exactly America is protecting us from? The only threat to North America is America. And America can't even defend the Strait of Hormuz. That's only a small part of Iran. Canada is like six Irans. We are about 10th-ish in the world in drone technology and have not offended nearly every ally we have. Most NATO countries would come to our aid, against America. The age of manned armoured vehicles, missiles, and large combat ships is over. We are in the age of $1,000 drones destroying $5 million tanks. My money is on the United States not willing to mess with Canada. You'd take land and not be able to hold it because we'd make you pay in blood.

18 years ago after Sangin, came Garmser. There were several other fights inbetween in places I dont remember ( or didnt know ) the name of. We were to be rotated back to KAF after lengthy and intense combat operations. Instead we were told the British 3 Para needed our help.

17 years ago today we were ambushed in Sangin, Helmand province. After prolonged combat operations across 2 provinces, and fighting through the previous night, our platoon was given an 'easy' task for the day. Ben and me using the 60mm mortar a few hours earlier ( from BoW )

18 years ago 2 Platoon alongside Recce, fought the battle of Hyderabad ( Helmand province ) We had been in near constant contact for weeks and pulled into a huge leaguer ( pics of part of it from next day ) to resupply and rest. Arriving around 11pm we put our heads down.