Morale among Canadian troop trainers in Afghanistan was shaky: army survey

OTTAWA – An army survey has found Canadian troops suffered from shaky morale when they were deployed to train the Afghan military following the end of Canada’s combat mission in Kandahar.

Only one-third of the soldiers who took part in the end-of-tour study said they would be willing to deploy on similar operations in the future — a finding that senior commanders found troubling.

Equally disturbing for the military leadership was that only 58 per cent of those asked felt that their job, which mostly involved training Afghan national army trainers, was “significant or important.”

The survey, involving 69 per cent of the 950 person task force, was conducted in March of 2012 and recently released to The Canadian Press under access to information legislation, along with briefing material for the commander of the army.

The release coincides with the final withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan after a five-year combat mission, an exercise that will be ongoing until next spring.

Lt.-Gen. Stuart Beare says when one is in the thick of stressful situations it’s tough to fully appreciate what’s happened, but he’s confident the troops understood the importance of their work once they returned home.