By Lee Berthiaume
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
The Peterborough Examiner
PETAWAWA -- It was a sunny but cold Afghanistan morning and the Canadian soldiers had no idea that within 20 minutes one of them would be dead and three wounded.
At 8 a.m. on Jan. 27, Peterborough's Lieut. Jason Feyko and three of his Royal Canadian Regiment Parachute company soldiers loaded into an Iltis armoured vehicle. Several metres in front of them, Feyko's boss, Maj. John Vass, and three more soldiers were doing the same.
The day's mission was routine and straightforward, for Afghanistan. The two officers were to meet with several tribal leaders in Kabul, the country's capital. The leaders got together about once a week and the Canadian soldiers tried to attend to keep up relations as well as gather and pass on information about the Taliban.
A few minutes later, the two vehicles rolled out of Camp Julien's main gate, turned a corner and started down the road to the city. Even at this hour, the road was choked with Afghanis going about their daily business. Many ran shops along the side of the road; many wandered about shopping.
Feyko watched the people carefully, looking for any indications of a coming attack, especially suicide bombers. The soldiers had all been given a description of what too look for but on this day, that description wouldn't help.
As the soldiers continued, Feyko noticed a man starting to cross the road and coming close to his Iltis vehicle. The man had a greasy beard, a brown hat and a jacket. There was nothing unusual about the man - he didn't fit the given description of a suicide bomber - but something didn't seem right.
A few seconds after the Iltis had passed, Feyko felt the concussion from the explosives the man was carrying. Shrapnel sprayed in every direction, hitting Feyko below the eye, in the legs and in his back. He didn't know he was hit, yet.
The lieutenant was pushed forward onto the vehicle's dashboard and a single thought flashed through his mind: "That was a suicide bomber."
As he regained the ability to move, Feyko heard two of his men, Cpl. Richard Michael Newman and Cpl. Jeremy Gerald MacDonald crying out that they were hurt. Turning, Feyko saw that the fourth man, Cpl. Jamie Murphy, wasn't moving.
Feyko's training kicked in and he moved to help his men. He checked Murphy and determined he was dead, so he turned his attention to Newman and MacDonald. He swore as he helped the two soldiers while watching the area for another attack. Feyko saw Vass's Iltis speeding back. It had been travelling about 50 metres ahead as a precaution.
Around them, the Afghanis had scattered, except for nine who had been injured in the explosion and another that was dead.
Vass took charge and Feyko began to feel himself getting cold and tired as shock took over. As Vass ordered the other men to secure the area, Feyko was placed in the second Iltis and for the first time he saw his wounds in the mirror. They didn't look so bad a cut under his eye and a few scratches from shrapnel in the rest of him.
A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived and took him back to a medical station. As he lay on a stretcher, medics tended his wounds. He look up at one and said he was tired.
"Is it OK if I go to sleep?" he asked, knowing the dangers of sleeping while in shock. "I'd really like it if you stayed awake," the medic replied.
The next few weeks were a myriad of surgeries, hospital rooms and plane rides as Feyko made his way home.
The 30-year-old sits on his couch in jogging pants, a sweater and a baseball cap as he remembers the events of the last month. A blanket covers his body and a half glass of orange juice is on the table in front of him. Thanks to bandages all over his legs and weeks in hospital beds, the once active and fit lieutenant has difficulty standing for long.
A scar runs under his right eye, which he must dab from time to time with tissue. He can't see anything except light with that eye and doctors say a full recovery isn't guaranteed. However, he surprised everyone by walking off the plane that brought him to Ottawa from Germany and is in much better shape than would be expected.
"I told them I'm not going to be stretchered off that plane," he said, adding he didn't even need crutches.
After several operations in Ottawa, Feyko returned home to Petawawa last Thursday. Ironically, this was the same day he would have returned if he hadn't been wounded.
"It's definitely good to be back," he says. "I just didn't take the route I wanted."
Feyko and his men arrived in Afghanistan last August and he says the experience was different than the six months he served in Bosnia in 1998.
"In Bosnia, you knew who the enemy was," he says. "Afghanistan was different. You don't if it's a man in burqa or a kid handing out pens. We didn't know who to trust and who not to trust."
In Afghanistan, soldiers stayed in the camp and never went out unless they had to and explosives were often found on the road leading out of Camp Julien.
The regiment Feyko was with was charged with maintaining security in Kabul and the surrounding area. They met with local leaders, conducted patrols and helped train the local police force. They also helped with some humanitarian missions, such as the time his unit gave 1,000 blankets to orphans.
"They were the happiest kids," Feyko says. "It's nice to know we're helping people."
Feyko says in the six months he was in the country he saw a lot of positive changes. More schools and businesses were opening and the people were more optimistic for their futures.
Feyko says the hardest part of the bombing was Murphy's death, especially in Germany where he didn't have anything else to think about. However, Feyko says he knows there's nothing he could have changed.
"When a guy is willing to give up his life to kill another human being, there's nothing you can do," he says.
He doesn't know how long he'll be out of action, but he knows he'll stay in the military and is proud of what he and his men did in Afghanistan.
"The people are tired of war," he says. "You just kept it in mind that we were there for a good reason; you're helping people who have no hope."