Lives measured in kilograms: Mitigating the soldier’s load

From the Legion Magazine.

Lives measured in kilograms:
Mitigating the soldier’s load

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

In March 2002, on a mountain near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border known as the Whale’s Back, a company from the vaunted U.S. 10th Mountain Division joined 400 Canadian troops and a handful of U.S. Navy Seals on an assault to clear enemy positions, bunkers and suspected cave complexes of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. It could have been the 10th Mountain’s Waterloo, not so much for the enemy they faced as the baggage they carried, both literal and metaphorical.

Into icy waters
Story by Tom MacGregor

Fifty years ago, on May 8, 1968, 26 parachutists jumped from three Buffalo aircraft expecting to land in a drop zone on the Mattawa Plains, a flat sandy stretch of land on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. Instead, rough winds caught them, sending 22 of them into the frigid Ottawa River. Seven drowned before rescuers could reach them.