After he recovered from his wound in Afghanistan, Master-Corporal Chris Drewes has decided to take a break from active duty.
The 25-year-old was finishing his second tour of duty in April 2010 when an improvised explosion wounded him in the shoulder. While he doesn’t remember the explosion, the shoulder was probably the best place to be struck by debris.
But that explosion didn’t leave a single wound on the 10-man scouting team that Drewes was with in April 2010. The blast was fatal, and it killed Drewes’ firing partner, 26-year-old Pte. Tyler William Todd.
Drewes was leading the scouting team of first Battalion of the Princess Patricia Light Infantry unit. Their job was to check out a small village believed to be a haven for the Taliban. Fighting had already taken place at the city and it was Drewes’ job to identify any key figures, such as a mayor or a spiritual leader, as well as look for routes to and from the village.
Compared to his first tour that had him mostly within city limits, Drewes second tour had him moving along the countryside, roughing it with his team as they looked for enemies.
Water ran low and the scouting party decided to head back to resupply. Down in the canal where Drewes and the others were going to fill up their water bottles, someone had placed an improvised explosive device into the side of dirt ditch.
Drewes says he doesn't remember how big the explosion was but the blast blew a few holes in his shoulder.
“I was lucky enough to have taken it in my shoulder. It's probably the best place to get hit,” Drewes says, recalling the fatal day.
“There's nothing you can do when a friend dies. You just soldier on. Nothing really changes. You just keep going. Afterwards it hits you. You're upset. You're kept busy. It's on the back of your mind but you're never sitting in the corner by yourself. You have things to do.
“You get mad, naturally but at who? You're never going to find the guy.”
After spending six years of his life in the military, Drewes says he's taking sometime for himself. He enrolled at Lakehead University in the political science program. He now has plans to take the pre-law program.
“I'm not against (going back to combat) I'm not opposed to it at all,” he says. “It’s just there's other stuff going on and I've already given up six years in the regular force … It's my time.”
Drewes' decision to enlist with the army was cemented around the time he was at St. Ignatius High School. There, he was able to join a military co-op program and he completed his basic training.
“I've wanted to be a soldier since I was small, since I was a little boy playing GI Joes,” he says.
“When I was in high school, some had this clear idea on what they wanted to do. Someone knew they wanted to be a mechanic, an engineer, a cop but I didn't really know. I did the co-op program and that got me thinking that I could do this as a career.”
After the basic training, it was time for Drewes to pick a specialization.
He chose the infantry, which wasn’t an easy ride.
The instructors kept the recruits up for five days to simulate the stress a soldier can go through while deployed on a mission.
Drewes says it is a tough thing to go through and sometimes he caught himself falling asleep on his feet.
Drewes' first mission as a soldier took him to Afghanistan in 2008.
For about six months, it was his and his unit's duty to protect engineers and construction workers as they helped to build various structures from schools to wells and pay Afghan workers to help stimulate the economy.
“Combat gets your heart racing but it's not a video game at all,” Drewes says. “They are pretty far away and there's a lot of moving parts involved in combat. It's not this fast pace Call of Duty video game style, paintball type thing.”
Despite a few rocket attacks, he says his first tour was plain.
The temperature always played a key role in whatever he did.
Even in October when the temperature was cooler, he says he still went through water like crazy. But the heat was bearable the cold nights were another matter.
“You still freeze every night,” Drewes says, recalling how much he needed water despite the cooler October nights. “You can't sit still and not be cold. There's going to be a little shivering factor. About 90 per cent of the time that I was out there, I was just walking around sweating being uncomfortable. A lot of it isn't fun. Your uncomfortable, your back is sore, just sweating and a lot of time nothing happens.”
Drewe's father, Jack says he happy to have his son home. As a father, he says he's proud of what his Drewes has been able to accomplish and often has to catch himself from bragging too much.
Since Drewes time in the military, Jack says he's seen some changes in his son most notable that he takes his responsibilities more seriously and has grown up in situations that not many people would want to be in.
“I heard that he lost a number of friends over there,” Jack says. “I was with him when his sergeant was killed. We were on vacation together. That was very upsetting. He's seen a number of his comrades fall. I can't speak from experience to offer comfort, so all I can do is listen.”
Jack Drewes kept in constant communication with his son while he was away. Jack says the Canadian military allowed soldiers to log onto Facebook and chat with family and friends while they were on breaks.
Although the conversations were never about anything too serious, Jack says it always amazed him the level of communication the Internet can provide.
Internet chatting wasn’t their only method of communication. Drewes called his father at least once a week. Jack says he remembers the day when Drewes called him to tell him he was coming home.
“It just so happened to be a Sunday morning that he phoned,” he says. “He basically said 'I have some good news and some bad news. What do you want to hear first?' I said I want to hear the good news. He said 'I'm coming home'. I said what's the bad news? We'll I kind of got wounded a bit.”
He said he was happy to hear that his son was going back to university and hopes his son will be one of the first graduates of the PACI law school.
“I was surprised a little bit that he joined the military. He was always a focused young man. He knows what he wants to do and he works as hard as he can to get it,” he says.
