Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.
Lee Greenberg, Can West news service, Ottawa Citizen, 25 Nov 06
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Meet Bombardier Teddy Zaremba _
a hulking artillery soldier who was once mistaken for a bear during
a military training exercise. He's the Unluckiest Guy in NATO.
Although more than 40 Canadian soldiers have died in the war-torn
country since early 2002 _ making Zaremba's misfortune seem trivial
_ that is what his section mates call him, anyway.
And Zaremba's inclined to agree with them.
"If I'm not cursed, I've definitely got the worst luck ever," he
says. "If something bad's going to happen, it's going to happen to
me.''
Since embarking on a cursed six-month stretch in Afghanistan, he
has fallen down a flight of stairs, tripped over a tent wire, broken
his $500 camera and been given the only ration pack known to come
with a hole in the bottom.
On his second day in the field, the Regina-born, Calgary-raised
Zaremba slammed his fingers in the hatch of an armoured vehicle
while fleeing what he mistakenly believed was a mortar attack.
Commanders had merely called for a "stand to", or a heightened state
of alert, not panic.
"The medics told me you're lucky you've got fat fingers or you
would have lost them," says Zaremba, who tips the scales at 113.4
kilograms.
Those same medics proceeded to botch the stitching job and, forced
to seek treatment elsewhere, Zaremba became a passenger on three
successive convoys that were ambushed twice, suffered a flat tire
and had one vehicle rollover.
Unbelievably, things went downhill from there.
The mini-UAV _ unmanned aerial vehicle _ his section had trained to
operate crashed in a series of tests and authorities ordered it
permanently grounded. The troop has, instead, spent nearly four
months performing gate duty at a tiny patrol base in the heartland
of the Taliban-led insurgency.
Members of the troop compare their new task to prison.
Zaremba is taking the equipment failure in an intensely personal
way. More often than not, he was the one who was flying the tiny spy
plane. He is firmly convinced he's jinxed.
"He's taken it to heart," says Sgt. Tony Tullett, Zaremba's boss.
Tullett says the 30-year-old artillery soldier's guilt is
misplaced. Without Zaremba, who section mates describe as a
"computer whiz", the mini-UAV project would never have gotten as far
as it did, he says.
Tullett, nevertheless, adds: "If there was a coffee cup in this
room, Teddy would trip on it and hit his head against the wall."
He has done that, too. Several times.
"I'm always hitting my head on (stuff)," he says. "I'm not a
graceful man."
He has been awakened from a dead sleep to find himself launched
almost one metre in the air by an incoming helicopter.
"He was just screaming 'What the hell? What the hell?'" his
neighbour, a South African dog handler, says howling.
"I've never seen anything like it."
Is it any wonder Zaremba's taken up smoking again?
That he is given to suddenly declaring: "I'm getting out (of the
army)."
"He's one smart guy," says Master Bombardier Rick Atkinson, who is
based at CFB Petawawa, near Ottawa, with Zaremba. "Incredibly smart.
He's just the clutziest guy in the world _ klutzy and unlucky."
With just under three months left in Zaremba's six-month tour, the
dark cloud that seems to hover over his perpetually crooked helmet
shows no sign of lifting.
He returned from a two-week holiday in Germany last week with news
he had been robbed.
The encounter ruined his vacation.
Then, on his first shift back on gate duty, Patrol Base Wilson came
under mortar attack. It was the first such attack in months.
His section mates were not surprised.
"Hey, that's Teddy," said Atkinson, smiling.