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The Globe and Mail (Canada)
December 28, 2006 Thursday
A soldier’s life is one of extremes; even the lulls are tension-filled
BYLINE: CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
DATELINE: FORWARD OPERATING BASE, ZETTELMEYER, AFGHANISTAN

As Elmore Leonard wrote in Tishomingo Blues, a novel whose climatic scene occurs in the midst of one of those American Civil War re-enactments with thousands of folks dressed up in period gear and carrying swords and pistols, “What they said about being in the army all hurry up and wait? It was even true pretending being in the army.” This is, sort of, what Globe and Mail photographer Kevin Van Paassen and I are doing here in the Panjwai valley of southern Afghanistan with Charles Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Canadian Regiment. Officially, we are embedded media, but what we are really doing is getting a taste of the soldier’s life. We are pretending.