Lt Col Groulx is missing Blue Rodeo tonight (9 photos)

SooToday.com has recived the following e-mail and accompaying photos from a loyal reader and Saultbie serving with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Groulx provides occasional "letters home" that describe life and his experiences in that war-torn country.

************************* Well, here I am in Afghanistan again.

I left Afghanistan in July 2008 from a six-month tour that I found to be incredibly rewarding.

Certainly, a big part of what made it rewarding was the incredible support that I received from family and friends in Sault Ste. Marie.

Late in the fall of 2009, I was asked if I would be interested in returning to Kabul to assist with the final exercise of an Afghan army officer training course.

The Afghan course is similar to the Canadian course that I worked with through 2009.

I jumped at the chance to come back to Kabul.

A team of four of us were tasked to assist in the running of the final exercise that took place in December 2009.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of development that has taken place in the relatively short time since my departure in 2008.

When driving through the city at night in 2008, it was in complete darkness due to the lack of electricity.

Now, with reliable electricity through the city, stores can stay open after dark, and that one small change has a significant impact.

Many shops, offices, and banks that were all boarded up in 2008 are now open and busy.

The only downside is that the traffic in the city is much busier than before, and traffic rules here are not what they are at home - to say the least.

I am extremely proud to have a hand in the training that is going on here.

The course I am working with is the Junior Officer Staff Course located in the Afghan Army Command and Staff College.

The course trains Afghan army and police officers to work in military headquarters, and upon graduation they will deploy around the country to man positions in active operational headquarters that are directly involved in the fight here.

In my opinion, the training of Afghan army and police is the most important task in the country.

When the Afghan National Security Forces are capable of maintaining security throughout the country, then there will no longer be a need for coalition forces to remain.

The training course that I am working for is relatively new.

The course that ended in December was only the second serial of the course, and it is still in development.

At the end of the course in December, I was asked if I would re-write the final exercise, and I worked on that from home through the rest of the winter.

A new team was assembled in March, and following the necessary pre-deployment training, I returned to Kabul at the end of March to run the final exercise for the third course - this time it was an exercise that I prepared with the help of an interpreter in Afghanistan.

It is very rewarding work, and I have the benefit of seeing some of the advancements in this country.

They work a six-day work week here, and I just had Friday off.

Our team took advantage of the day off and at sunrise we were climbing Gharub Ghar which is a mountain inside of an army training camp.

It provided a beautiful view [shown from the peak in photo above] of the city and was a challenging climb.

Thanks to my training with the 49th - and specifically thanks to training I received from Steve Foster - I found the climb fairly easy and enjoyable.

One of the soldiers here rescued a dog who was dying on the side of the road a few months ago.

The pup is now three months old, and joined us for the climb on Friday.

The dog got loose and was enjoying the company of all of the soldiers from different countries who were climbing.

On the way down, I found the dog [see gallery photos], and carried him down so that we wouldn’t have to find him when it was time to leave.

A number of Romanian soldiers stopped me so that they could get their picture with the dog.

Thanks again for all of the support that you provide to me, and all of the other Sault soldiers.

I hope that you enjoy the Blue Rodeo concert (I saw them perform in Kandahar in 2008, and it was a great concert).

I wish I could see them in the Sault.

- Eric

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