Globe columnist Christie Blatchford was on patrol with Canadian Forces in Afghanistan over the weekend when Corporal Tony Boneca was killed in a fight with Taliban insurgents near Pasmul. Her story
Soldiers engaged in lethal two-day game of cat-and-mouse with Taliban fighters
is a vivid, personal account of what happened that fateful day. Her reporting from the scene sparked a strong debate on globeandmail.com as readers alternately
praised and condemned
it, the issue of embedding journalists and the wisdom of Canada's continuing mission in the troubled country.
Christie followed that up today with a second report Three days of fierce, bloody war
Christie was on-line earlier today to take your questions on these stories, the mood of Canadian troops in the field and all things Afghanistan. The questions and answers appear at the bottom of this page.
This is Christie's second assignment with the troops in Afghanistan. Earlier this year, she described the reality of life — and war — for our troops in her two-part series The Belly Button and Into the forbidding Afghan hills .
You can read the rest of Christie's reports from Afghanistan, along with other Globe stories, editorials and comment on our special report on Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
Christie started at The Globe in 1972 while still at Ryerson and worked here for six years, four as sports columnist, before joining The Toronto Star for four years as a general assignment reporter. She spent 15 years at the Toronto Sun, first as a humor columnist and then as the paper's main news pages columnist. She covered the first Gulf War for The Sun. Christie joined The National Post for five years, dating from its birth, and then came back to The Globe where her primary beat now is the criminal courts. She's also a general assignment columnist who still dabbles in sports (at the Turin Olympics recently) and in politics (during the recent federal election).
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Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Christie, thanks for joining us today to take questions from readers of globeandmail.com on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. It's a subject that provokes strong feeling across Canada. Your vivid, first-person accounts over the past few days since the death of Corporal Tony Boneca ignited an often-emotional debate on our site, with some readers condemning the mission while praising our troops. Other readers criticized the critics for knocking the mission itself. I want to start by asking you about the morale of the troops. How is it in general? How much attention, if any, do they pay to media reports of the debate back home? What do they think of the debate?
Christie Blatchford: Whatever your view of the Afghanistan mission, it's clear that our soldiers here are performing brilliantly under primitive conditions. However the political debate may rage at home, they are here at the request of our government (and Afghanistan's) and they are worthy of our support and admiration. The two things can co-exist.
As to their morale, I think it's remarkably good.
Are they dog-tired, filthy, sun-baked, gaunt and worked to the bone? Yes.
Are they tired of living on rations and drinking bottled water that is rarely cooler than warm, and sometimes a helluva lot hotter? Yes.
Does that equate to lousy morale? It doesn't.
Most of the men I've met are remarkably cheerful and determined to carry on.
Bill G., Calgary: Christie, I don't have a question — just a message if you'd be kind enough to pass it on. Tell our troops that this is one Canadian that is damn proud of them and job they are doing. God bless them all. Be safe!
