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A combat engineer who earned the Governor General’s medal of bravery by crawling into a small culvert in Afghanistan to defuse a bomb has one question for Franck Gervais: Why?
“There must be some reason behind their actions and we don’t know or understand what those reasons are,” said 31-year-old Sgt. Dale Kurdziel, who is originally from Ottawa but is currently based in Edmonton.
One of the accolades Gervais wore on Remembrance Day in Ottawa — where he was taken for a Canadian soldier — appeared to be a medal of bravery, an honour that is meant to recognize those who have risked their lives in hazardous circumstances.
Kurdziel was a few months into his first tour in Afghanistan on Feb. 19, 2010, and working with a counter-IED task force, when he crawled into a culvert in Kandahar to dismantle a bomb.
The nine-year veteran estimated the opening was only as wide as his shoulders and as tall as his boots (when his toes were on the ground) as he slithered into the culvert.
Kurdziel inched his way in carefully with a flashlight, headlamp, piece of rope and a utility knife and set out to safely dismantle the IED after a robot had partially disarmed it.
About two hours later, with only a few breaks from the confined space, Kurdziel had managed to dismantle the IED by hand and recovered all of its components to catalogue as evidence.
“I was just doing my job,” Kurdziel said. “When it comes down to it, there was a bomb in the ground, it had to come out and come out in such a way that it wasn’t going to do any damage to anybody or anything.”
Kurdziel said he remembers the first time he disarmed a live IED — he had only worked on inert bombs during training. He said he realized all the training, time and effort he had put into learning the trade had paid off.
“It was very fulfilling and humbling at the same time,” Kurdziel said. “Being able to prevent damage to their infrastructure, to their roads and keep everybody safe at the same time is definitely a key factor.”
More than four years later, as Kurdziel was at Rideau Hall to accept his award, he reflected on the calibre of the more than 40 other nominees. The bravery of two young girls who were awarded with medals of bravery, Kurdziel said, blew him away, he said.
Kina Raven was only 10 years old when she risked her life to protect a woman who was being attacked by two other others in Cross Lake, Man., by jumping on top of her to stop the assault.
The other girl, Juliette Kokokons, was 12 years old when she rescued a friend who had accidentally grabbed a high-voltage wire in Terrace Bay, Ont.
“It’s a great honour to be thought of, to be a potential recipient of the award,” Kurdziel said. “These people are very well deserving.”
mhurley@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/meghan_hurley
查看原文...
“There must be some reason behind their actions and we don’t know or understand what those reasons are,” said 31-year-old Sgt. Dale Kurdziel, who is originally from Ottawa but is currently based in Edmonton.
One of the accolades Gervais wore on Remembrance Day in Ottawa — where he was taken for a Canadian soldier — appeared to be a medal of bravery, an honour that is meant to recognize those who have risked their lives in hazardous circumstances.
Kurdziel was a few months into his first tour in Afghanistan on Feb. 19, 2010, and working with a counter-IED task force, when he crawled into a culvert in Kandahar to dismantle a bomb.
The nine-year veteran estimated the opening was only as wide as his shoulders and as tall as his boots (when his toes were on the ground) as he slithered into the culvert.
Kurdziel inched his way in carefully with a flashlight, headlamp, piece of rope and a utility knife and set out to safely dismantle the IED after a robot had partially disarmed it.
About two hours later, with only a few breaks from the confined space, Kurdziel had managed to dismantle the IED by hand and recovered all of its components to catalogue as evidence.
“I was just doing my job,” Kurdziel said. “When it comes down to it, there was a bomb in the ground, it had to come out and come out in such a way that it wasn’t going to do any damage to anybody or anything.”
Kurdziel said he remembers the first time he disarmed a live IED — he had only worked on inert bombs during training. He said he realized all the training, time and effort he had put into learning the trade had paid off.
“It was very fulfilling and humbling at the same time,” Kurdziel said. “Being able to prevent damage to their infrastructure, to their roads and keep everybody safe at the same time is definitely a key factor.”
More than four years later, as Kurdziel was at Rideau Hall to accept his award, he reflected on the calibre of the more than 40 other nominees. The bravery of two young girls who were awarded with medals of bravery, Kurdziel said, blew him away, he said.
Kina Raven was only 10 years old when she risked her life to protect a woman who was being attacked by two other others in Cross Lake, Man., by jumping on top of her to stop the assault.
The other girl, Juliette Kokokons, was 12 years old when she rescued a friend who had accidentally grabbed a high-voltage wire in Terrace Bay, Ont.
“It’s a great honour to be thought of, to be a potential recipient of the award,” Kurdziel said. “These people are very well deserving.”
mhurley@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/meghan_hurley
查看原文...
