“The Patrol” was written by
Ryan Flavelle, who joined the Canadian Forces reserves as a signaller in 2001
and in 2007 volunteered to go to Afghanistan. Since his service in Afghanistan, Flavelle has done graduate studies
at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
His research into battle exhaustion during the Second World War took first
prize in the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies Awards for Excellence.
The publisher’s description
of the book is, “For seven months,
twenty-four-year-old Flavelle, a signaller attached to the Princess Patricia’s
Canadian Light Infantry, endured the extreme heat, the long hours and the
occasional absurdity of life as a Canadian soldier in this new war so far from
home. Flavelle spent much of his time at a Canadian Forward Operating Base (FOB), living among his fellow soldiers and
occasionally going outside the wire. For one seven-day period, Flavelle went
into Taliban country, always walking in the footsteps of the man ahead of him,
meeting Afghans and watching behind every mud wall for a sign of an enemy
combatant.
The Patrol is a gritty, boots-on-the-ground memoir of
a soldier’s experience in the Canadian Forces in the twenty-first century. This
book isn’t merely about the guns and the glory—it is about why we fight, why
men and women choose such a dangerous and demanding job and what their lives
are like when they find themselves back in our ordinary world.”
These pat descriptions of
Flavelle and his book do not begin to do justice to “The Patrol.” This is an
exceptional book. More then just an account of what it was like in Afghanistan for
an infantryman, it is a serious work of literature.
There are classic books which
come out of war. When trying to compare this book to other wartime classics
this reviewer was reminded of Stephen Crane’s ” Red Badge of Courage” and
Charles B. MacDonald’s ”Company Commander”. Like those books, “The Patrol” is
unsparing in its straightforward yet moving description of the reality of
combat for those in the infantry. In it's own way, like those important books, it also speaks for that, very small, part of a generation who went to war for us in Afghanistan.
To quote from the book: "Nothing can prepare a person for the
reality of bloody, concussive warfare. . . . Those who like war are aptly named
warriors. Some, like me, are fated never to be warriors, as we are more afraid
of war than fascinated by it. But I have the consolation that I have walked
with warriors and know what kind of men and women they are. I will never be a
warrior, but I have known war."
This is a book that deserves
to be read and recognized, not just for it’s contribution for our understanding
of what motivates Canadian soldiers and what their experience of war is, but
because it is a thoughtful, surprisingly sensitive, book that somehow makes it
possible for us to identify with those who stand on guard for all of us.
