Largely into the Unknown

I was a brand new regimental sergeant major which is the senior non-commissioned member in a battalion. So it was very exciting to go over. As I said, I was very fortunate I was sort of a key rank in all these deployments. Culture shock to be sure and because it was Roto O it was largely into the unknown. We were prepared, I suppose, as best as a unit can be prepared when even the senior leadership doesn’t perhaps completely understand in context everything about Afghanistan and all the nuances, the culture itself, what the implications of that culture is, alliances, allegiances, how the structures of the villages go, loyalties, not really sure. I mean that is something that’s learned in the fullness of time on operations. But I would say, again, a typical soldier I mean it was very exciting. It was very exciting. We knew that it was on a different plane of danger and professional demands than all previous operations had been and we knew that it had potential to go on for a long period of time. And we knew that there was a whole new element to this deployment we had never faced before and that was improvised explosive devices and even in Kandahar, you know we faced that. When I was there on tactical reconnaissance before the actual unit deployed, the commanding officer of the RSM, not always the RSM but mostly with the RSM, and senior officers go off to do their reconnaissance before they take over to make sure they know what they are getting into and even when we were there or shortly before we were there, I should say, a bus full of German soldiers or a bus that was full of German soldiers, a car detonated beside it and I think there was four Germans killed at the time. So it was driven home to us pretty clear that this was something new to us. Yes we had had soldiers severely wounded in the former Yugoslavia as a result of mines but to the best of my knowledge no improvised explosive devices so we were entering a brand new uncharted territory here for the Canadian Forces and our training. You know we felt we were as prepared as we could be for the operation. We were as well trained as we could be but it was clear to us when we were on the operation that much more thought had to be given to training for subsequent missions because we trained pretty much in sort of conventional style operations instead of counter insurgency operations or the type of direct threats we would see in Afghanistan.

Mr. Bradley speaks about his deployment to Afghanistan with Roto O in 2007 and how this operation differed from previous operations.

Daniel Bradley

Mr. Daniel Bradley was born June 24, 1958 in Ottawa, Ontario. At 18 years of age, walking by a recruiting centre, Mr. Bradley made an impulsive decision to join the military having a desire for the infantry. Mr. Bradley became a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment holding rank as an infanteer and obtained training at CFB Cornwallis in Trenton, Ontario. After training, Mr. Bradley spent a bit of time In Canada service but in 1978 experienced his first operational deployment to Cyrpus. In 1992 Mr. Bradley was given another opportunity to deploy to Somalia and joined a contingency from the RCR and became part of the Airborne Regiment where he held rank of Chief Warrant Officer. As his military career continued Mr. Bradley was part of an operational to Croatia in 1994, Bosnia in 1997 and more recently 2002/03 travelled to Afghanistan on two different operations, one being Roto O as Company Sergeant Major. Mr. Bradley retired in 2011 with 35 years of military sevice.