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Watch out for them hosers, eh?

By The Armorer on October 26, 2008 | | Comments (7)
CAPT H, Damian, Alan, Big Al, Nick, Wendy, Kate, Kathy - this one's for you.


Lumberjack commandos... Ninjas and Pirates ain't got nothing on Canadians. The real deal: These guys are from Pioneer Platoon, 1 RCR. The pic was taken in Kosovo

Update: From the comments, a comment by Dr. Sean Maloney, a CF historian:
 

These guys are from Pioneer Platoon, 1 RCR. The pic was taken in Kosovo during the riots in Mitrovica in 2000. Pioneer Platoon lined up its engineer variant M-113's with the dozer blades raised to form a steel wall across the bridge over the Ibar River in order to stop the 50,000-man human tide....and then manhandled any of the Kosovar Albanians who tried to climb over it away from the barricade. The UK Army Warrior in the background was from their QRF which was set up adjacent to the bridge.
 

Like the poster sez - Ninjas and Pirates got nothing on these boyos - and we're not talking beards.

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7 Comments

By Kevin on October 26, 2008 2:32 PM
Oooh, looky at all the pouches for Two-Four Beer!

The Great White North eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kkYhCX1uqQ
 
By Neffi on October 26, 2008 3:30 PM
I wouldn't cross 'em... I've known guys look like that, and they carried pliers in case you had gold teeth- the oral exam made after administration of noisy anaesthetic.
Or they could be harmless, friendly teddy-bears... your call 
 
By Pat on October 26, 2008 4:51 PM
They would be members of the pioneer platoon for one of our infantry bns, probably one of the RCR(Royal Canadian Regiment) Bns. I never worked with the PPCLI or the Van Doos, so I don't know if they share the same beard tradition for their pioneers. The clothing, eqpt and British Army Warrior in the background indicates they are in the FRY, probably Bosnia with SFOR. They have Canadian helmets, rather than the U.S. helmets we deployed with on IFOR, but they still have the canvas LBV and no CADPAT other than the helmet covers.
 
By BillT on October 27, 2008 4:36 AM
I think Pat's got it. Architecture in the background looks more like the Banja Luka Metal Factory than a Kabul concrete structure...
 
By Holdfast on October 27, 2008 1:55 PM
Agreed - the clothing/helmet/lbv combo is circa 1997-2000.   The jackets are what was then the "new" gore-tex jackets (intro 1994) but before the new cadpat, the helmets are the Canadian design which I think came in in 1997 and the lbvs are 1990s vintage.

Usually the Pats pioneers I worked with were a bit more trimmed, but if they'd been living in a patrol house for a few weeks...
 
By Sean Maloney on October 27, 2008 4:10 PM
These guys are from Pioneer Platoon, 1 RCR. The pic was taken in Kosovo during the riots in Mitrovica in 2000. Pioneer Platoon lined up its engineer variant M-113's with the dozer blades raised to form steel wall across the bridge over the Ibar River in order to stop the 50 000-man human tide....and then manhandled any of the Kosovar Albanians who tried to climb over it away from the barricade. The UK Army Warrior in the background was from their QRF which was set up adjacent to the bridge.

-Sean M. Maloney, PhD
       Historian
 Canadian Army
 
By The Armorer Author Profile Page on October 27, 2008 4:20 PM
Well, *that's* pretty definitve, I'm thinking.