I’ve been on a fairly good roll the last few weeks with getting stories done, but consequently it’s hard to keep up with the explanations so some of these were posted a few weeks ago. That said, if you have any questions about a specific story, just let me know and I’d be happy to
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This week’s samples: Set? Get! Run. Fun! Ball. Leaf? For some reason I generally find animal prompts difficult and this one was no exception. A dog with a leaf in its mouth? I was coming up blank and was on the verge of taking a knee on this prompt until I wondered what sort of
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Rare indeed is the debut author who picks up awards for their novel, and even rarer still are those stories that win awards before even being published. And yet, that’s exactly what Cari Dubiel has done with her debut work-in-progress, How to Remember. This past November, an excerpt of Cari’s speculative fiction mystery won her the
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Every year, around 5,000 veterans leave the Canadian Armed Forces. Some go directly into retirement, some face medical rehabilitation, but many look for second careers. As they enter the civilian workplace, these veterans bring unique experiences and skills, qualities that should make them desirable to many private sector employers. And yet, up until 2013 most
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The summer of 2006 in Kandahar, Afghanistan was surreal. In the early spring of that year, coalition forces regularly drove Panjwayi district, 30 km southwest of Kandahar city. By August, the region was nearly impassable, with several hundred to a thousand Taliban fighters reported to be in the district and intelligence analysts stressing that the
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The Revolution in Military Affairs that supposedly began in the 1990s introduced a lot of innovative ideas for how militaries of the future would conduct operations. Recognizing the effect of improved technology and a changed contemporary operating environment, terms such as Network-Centric Warfare and fourth-generation warfare (4GW) emerged, often to mixed reviews. In Canada, the
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2011 was supposed to be a banner year in Afghanistan. Starting in 2009, the American military began surging an additional 33,000 personnel into theatre, a half-again increase of pre-surge troop levels of 68,000. With these extra boots on the ground, 2010 saw an increase in operations and tempo that pushed the Taliban back on their
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“War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War. In 2002, suicide bombers were unheard of in Afghanistan. But in 2005, the tactic began to creep in from the neighbouring conflict in the Iraqi theatre of war. As the years dragged on, the tactic continued to evolve; using women, remote
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There was no shortage of fighting spirit during Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. Attacks, raids, cordons and searches, reconnaissance operations; every day offensive actions were happening to wear down the enemy. And yet, for all this activity, the Taliban endured and today, they remain a viable fighting force, fed and nurtured from generally unreachable safe havens.
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