With A Few Guns

With a Few Guns is focused on the contributions to the Afghanistan mission by the men and women of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, one of the largest and oldest of the Canadian Army’s regimental families that traces their lineage back to pre-Confederation. All Regiments have at their core the importance of maintaining the regimental family as a healthy, growing and dedicated institution that Canadians can be proud of and what younger Canadians want to join. Stories of those who prepared, deployed and fought for Canada are a cornerstone of our Regimental traditions.

This book’s perspective is varied and deeply personal, and mainly about gunners. It is set within the strategic context of why Canada was in Afghanistan, what Canada tried to do as part of the larger coalition of nations, how they were trained and equipped, who was there and how they went about trying to get things done at both the operational and tactical levels. The narrative is historical in its flow, with dozens of individual stories from gunners and those they supported within the combined arms team woven together not only in battles fought, but amongst all who contributed. The purpose of these stories is to capture what it was like, what happened, what went well, what could we do better and the actions/reactions of those under enormous pressure in a very complicated and chaotic environment.

Lieutenant-General (Retd) Andrew B. Leslie, PC, CMM, MSC, MSM, CD

The author, Wolf Riedel, is a retired colonel of the Canadian Armed Forces who has served as both a reservist and as a Regular Force member who served in the artillery, the infantry and the Office of the Judge Advocate General.