By James Mccarten
SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Like any Canadian teenager, Mitcheal Small longs for an apartment of his own, a couch in front of a big-screen TV and his first car, despite the fact he doesn't yet have his driver's licence.
Unlike others his age, however, Small's big plans will have to wait until the 19-year-old gunner - who only completed his basic training late last year - returns from Afghanistan, where he's fighting the Taliban as a member of B Troop, D Battery with the 2nd Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, based in Petawawa, Ont.
"That was one of my first choices, just to fire the big guns and see (stuff) blow up," said the grinning Small, whose thick Newfoundland accent confirms his origins in Main Brook, N.L., a tiny community of 350 on the island's northeastern tip.
"It was pretty cool, so I said, 'Oh yeah, let's do that.' It's a big rush to fire the big guns. That's why I like it."
Small is the youngest soldier in Dragon Battery, so christened last week after the troops learned of the nickname the Taliban has given their six towering 155-millimetre M777 Howitzer cannons, the mightiest piece of artillery in the Canadian Forces.
"Even the higher ups are like, '19 years old over here, eh? Wow, I got sleeping bags older than you."'
But Small is far from alone. Many of his fellow gunners are in their early 20s - a fact that only becomes apparent when they're killing time outside the dusty, sandbag-laden bunker at the forward operating base at Sperwan Ghar, nestled in a mountain range in the Panjwaii district.
Small, who has been in the desert since early February, admits he didn't expect to see combat so soon, a sign of how urgently the Canadian Forces needs soldiers in its mission supporting the coalition effort to drive out the Taliban and help restore the lives of locals in this war-scarred country.
"My mom didn't expect me to come overseas as quick," he recalled.
"She probably cried herself to sleep at night, but I tell her everything's OK, I'm all right, everything's good. People back home, too, are very supportive. Everybody's always asking about me, seeing pictures in the newspaper about me, and can't wait for me to come home so they can see me."
It was at Forward Operating Base Robinson - a dusty collection of tarps, trucks, cots and cannons in volatile Helmand province northwest of Sperwan Ghar - where Small's first experience with incoming mortar fire drove home the gravity of his situation.
"I didn't know where it was going to land; all you can hear is the whistle, and just the thought, you're just like, 'All right, is this the end?"' he said. "Then you hear the boom, and you think, all right, I'm all right - and you run to the bunker."
When they're not pounding enemy positions or shouldering 50-kilogram shells from an ammo truck, the young guns of Dragon Battery are usually acting their age: playing cards, talking trash and discussing their favourite subjects - girls, guns and cars, in that order.
"I do pay attention to the younger guys, because there's times that they may not know how to open up to their peers if there's something bothering them," said Master Warrant Officer Chad Wagar, 41, the battery's cigarillo-chewing sergeant-major and unofficial father figure.
Off the battlefield, Wagar said he often finds himself helping the younger soldiers negotiate issues at home that are usually reserved for a parent or an older sibling - dealing with irate landlords and the odd collection agency, for instance.
"A lot of them come from assorted backgrounds where they may not have had a big brother, they may not have had a nuclear family where everybody was intact and they had guidance from their parents, so you sit down and you talk with them about those sorts of things as well."
When one of Afghanistan's infamous camel spiders made an appearance in the bunker, it fell to Wagar to dispose of the nasty 10-legged creature - but not before waving it playfully in the visibly terrified faces of some of his younger charges.
"Watch - he's going to put it in my bed, I know it," one gunner muttered as Wagar walked away, clutching the offending critter in the teeth of his Leatherman.
But when coalition forces in Helmand encountered Taliban resistance and called for a fire mission, B Troop was all business, their meticulously rehearsed dance of deafening thunder and fire - choreographed by hard-boiled Warrant Officer Dennis Goodland - belying the age and inexperience of some of the soldiers.
"Guys who are used to playing on their high school volleyball team or hockey team or whatever, that's why they tend to fit in really well right away, and guys who aren't as team oriented take a little longer to come along," said Capt. Derek Crabbe, Dragon Battery's second in command.
"It's a family environment. You've got your family at home, whom you love very much, but you've got your second family, which is . . . your section, or your detachment. The guys learn to take care of one another, which is a key fundamental of the army way of life."
For parents and siblings, it can often be hard to understand the unique bond that exists between soldiers - something that's too readily dismissed as a Hollywood-fuelled fiction.
"For the most part, we don't always do a great job explaining to our families what it is and what it means to be a soldier, because it's not always easily said," said Crabbe.
"I think as an organization, maybe we don't do the best job of saying this is a team atmosphere, it is a family away from a family, but certainly those who are in the military understand exactly what I'm talking about."
Nor is it all back-slaps and good-natured ribbing. On this night, B Troop is suddenly tasked with setting up a mortar strike under the stars. Small's interview comes to an abrupt end when Goodland - a leathery, no-nonsense commander with a deep-seated love for his job and for his soldiers - delivers a fierce, profanity-laced rebuke, from one Newfoundlander to another.
"Why are you sitting there on your ass, while everyone else is out there working busting ammo?" he bellows."Get . . . out there and get to . . . work."
Afterwards, when the work is done and the threat has subsided, Small and 22-year-old Gunner Nathan Tomczek, from St. Catharines, Ont., are all smiles.
"If you want to know about army life," Tomczek laughed, "that's it right there."
Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press