News Article
Regina Man Returns from Afghanistan after Training Troops
Angela Hall, Leader-Post
7 July 2011
A pile of rocks near a road or a bag tied to a tree might seem innocuous, but Norm Marner knows that in Afghanistan these could be signs of hidden danger.
Marner, a warrant officer in the army reserve’s 10th Field Regiment in Regina, spent nearly seven months helping to train coalition troops on how to spot and avoid insurgents’ improvised explosive devices or IEDs — the makeshift bombs that have accounted for most of Canada’s combat deaths.
Marner, 54, served as the training co-ordinator within the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command’s counter-IED branch, a job that was based in Kabul, but required him to travel across Afghanistan.
He was the only Canadian on his team, which helped make soldiers from many nations more aware of IEDs and the ways they’re used. His work also involved working with Afghan army and police on how to assess and secure an area after a blast.
“In Afghanistan, it wasn’t a conventional war,” said Marner, who returned home to Regina late Wednesday night, just as Canada ends its combat operations in the country.
“You had to constantly be aware because you don’t know who the enemy was and what they look like.”
IEDs, which some Canadians might picture as a factory-made device, are often fashioned out of the most rudimentary items and rigged to deliver deadly results, Marner said.
And a seemingly harmless person could turn out to be a suicide bomber, or someone responsible for placing an IED at the side of a road or in a culvert where coalition troops were known to travel.
That made gaining the trust of local people vital for soldiers on the ground, he said, noting that Afghans would sometimes be aware of where IEDs were located because of markers set out by the insurgents.
“If they build up a good rapport with the local population, a lot of times the local population would let them know, ‘I wouldn’t go down that road or go down that corner tomorrow or something like that.’ .... On the other hand, it’s not that they wouldn’t tell you. In a lot of cases they were afraid themselves,” he said.
Marner, who works for Commissionaires Saskatchewan, is today getting reacquainted with life in Regina and relishing simple pleasures, such as driving down the street with his window open. The best part about returning home is being back with his family, said Marner, a dad to two adult daughters.
He occasionally used Skype to chat with his grandchildren while in Afghanistan.
Marner, who retired from the Canadian Forces in 1995 before joining the 10th Field Regiment in 2002, said he promised his wife Linda that his mission in Afghanistan would be his last such posting.
“I figured in my heart I had to do one more tour just to contribute any little small part that I could help out with,” he said.
He said he leaves Afghanistan feeling that some progress has been made, while knowing that there’s more work to be done.
“We’re in another phase now of training the Afghan army and the Afghan police to take over more of the roles of what we were traditionally doing over there,” he said.
“I think there’s still a fairly long road ahead. But hopefully, in the future, they’ll have a free country — like what we have that we take for granted.”
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