Soldier’s Emotions Come Through on Patrol

Heroes Remember

Soldier’s Emotions Come Through on Patrol

Transcript

So our deployment was very different from the ones in the future of what they had. So we also had G wagons so we were rolling around in jeeps. They took those away because the armour wasn’t as heavy as they wanted it to be to protect soldiers. So we did a lot of vehicle patrols, like long range and short range vehicle patrols while the future tours they did a lot more foot patrols and they were doing, I don’t know, maybe five to ten, maybe fifteen kilometres a day of walking while we were doing like I don’t know maybe twenty to two hundred kilometres of driving a day. And we would do that pretty much like it seemed like every day but it was probably every second day we would stagger it, either every second day or every third day but we would stagger it so that the enemy wouldn’t really know our routine. I did notice that we were driving quite a bit and we only really did any foot patrols at night within FOB Wilson at night just for the security every now and then just to do a walk around the perimeter at like two or three in the morning just to see if we could catch any bad guys or see if we can get any information about where the mortars were coming, maybe we could stumble across like find where they were actually was because we were getting mortared every day. My very first patrol like I was scared. It was a bit of adrenalin and a bit of fear. And it probably took maybe two or three patrols for that nervousness to go away and then it was gone. And then after that you just fall in to the groove and you don’t really think about it. You don’t really think about the IED’s. You don’t think about the threat. You just think about what your job is like what am I going to do when we stop here, Am I going to go left or am I going to go right? I am going to do my five and twenties in this direction because he is going to do it in that direction and you don’t really think. So If I look back on it the scariest times was like definitely my first to three patrols and then the next scary I can really think about was our last trip back to KAF to go home because that was like, "Hey, I made it this far, this is the last day, I hope I make it back!" We’re driving from KAF to get on the plane tomorrow. So that was the last day and actually that was a really bad day too because one of the vehicles, one of the LAV’s I can’t remember what type of line broke on it. Maybe a fuel line or a brake line or some sort of line but it prevented the vehicle from doing more than thirty kilometres an hour and we had like I think it was If I can remember it was like an hour and a half or two hour drive that turned in to like five or six hours. I believe the company commander saved this route because I had never been on this route before but he saved this route for this trip so that they would never expect us to go this route so we actually drove like right into the desert and went around a mountain and it was like we stayed away from the highway that day but this was an unchartered route so that was kind of like a little bit scary too because we were trying to avoid the ambush alley, like major part of the highway there that a lot of ambushes were getting hit but still the factor of that is was like, "Hey I have never driven on this route, this is new and scary." I am used to things that I know so that was a bit of a scary thing from the vehicle and the new route. So that was a really long day. A long last day.

Description

Corporal Kerr provides detail in the different types of patrols exercised by infantry and the sense of emotions experienced on return to the base.

Nick Kerr

Nick Kerr was born December 2, 1981 in Victoria, B.C. His father was in the military and had a personal connection with Lady Patricia and Nick knew one day he would join that regiment. In 2003, he attended military training in Wainwright, Alberta and upon graduating went to Shilo, Manitoba. Nick joined with the 2nd Battalion Canadian Light Infantry holding rank of Corporal. In 2006 Nick accepted a deployment to Afghanistan. Returning from overseas, Nick continued serving and became part of the contingent for security at 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. as well as the 2011 floods in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Always willing to serve and volunteer his time, Nick became a huge part of the organization in which Highway of Heroes was born where he still commits twice a year to cleaning the highway. Corporal Kerr is a still serving member with the military and resides in the province of Alberta.

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