Episode 86: The Last Canadian: Flying with the Americans on the CH-47 Chinook during the fall of Afghanistan Part 1 - Ian Wookey

In part 1 of a 3-part conversation on the fall of Afghanistan, Major Ian Wookey shares his first-hand account of the Afghanistan drawdown, from closing Kandahar Airfield to becoming the last Canadian on the ground.

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The Pilot Project Podcast is an aviation podcast that aims to help new pilots learn what it takes to succeed in the world of flight, to help people in the flight training system learn what they may want to fly, and to give Canadians and the world a peek into life on the flight deck in the RCAF. We want to help pilots succeed and thrive! We interview real RCAF pilots for their exciting stories as well as the lessons they've learned along the way. We'll learn their tips to develop resilience and the tools it takes to make it in flight training.

Bryan: 00:00

Hey, everybody. It's your host, Brian Morrison here with a quick announcement. We teased that we would be doing the seed corn episode today. That is the RCAF personal training in Lausimuth, Scotland. We had a small technical difficulty with that episode.

Bryan: 00:16

It is still coming, but it will not be aired this week. But lucky for you, we always have great content in the hopper. So today, we'll be sitting down with major Ian Wookie, who was the last Canadian in Afghanistan as we start a three part series detailing his experiences in Afghanistan as it collapsed and fell to the Taliban. So with that being said, please enjoy the show.

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Bryan: 01:07

Fuel and ignition switches. Wing three one zero ten, pilot project podcast, clear takeoff from wing three one left. Alright. We're ready for departure here at the pilot project podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and mission aviation pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison.

Bryan: 01:45

With me today is major Ian Wookie, a tac help pilot on a CH one forty seven f Chinook and executive assistant to chief air and space force development in Ottawa, Ontario. Ian, welcome back to the show. I'm really excited for this second two part interview. Thank you for being here.

Ian: 02:00

Hey. Happy to be here, Brian. Thanks.

Bryan: 02:02

So listeners can tune into episode seventy four and seventy five to hear about Ian's early career and time in flight training, which coincidentally, 75 actually airs today as we do this interview. And 75 is all about the experiences he had with four fifty tactical helicopter squadron here in Canada. Today for part one of our chat with Ian, we're going to talk about his time flying with the eighty second Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as well as the beginning of his experiences during the drawdown and eventual fall of Afghanistan. But before we get into that, let's refresh ourselves with Ian's bio. Major Ian Wookie was born and raised in Sarnia, Ontario.

Bryan: 02:40

He enrolled in the RCAF as a pilot through the ROTP program at the Royal Military College and was commissioned in 2010. Following his commission, he was posted to April and deployed to Afghanistan with the Special Operations Aviation Detachment in support of Op Enduring Freedom. In 2013, he received his wings and joined four fifty Tactical Helicopter Squadron qualifying on the CH-one 147 F Chinook helicopter. As a member of four fifty Squadron, he participated in numerous operations including Op Nanook in the Canadian Arctic and multiple Op Lentis deployments to aid in wildfire and flood response across Western Canada. In 2018, he was deployed to Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he flew the CH 47 F Chinook with the eighty second Airborne Division as a foreign exchange officer.

Bryan: 03:25

There he served as a senior air mission commander, tactics advisor, unit trainer, and battalion operations officer. He deployed with the eighty second Combat Aviation Brigade in 2021 on OP Freedom Sentinel, where he coordinated the retrograde of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan. During the evacuation of Kabul, he flew as a CH forty seven f aircraft commander in support of OP Allies refuge. Returning to four fifty tactical helicopter squadron in 2022, major Wookie held various leadership positions and served as a deputy commanding officer. He currently serves as executive assistant to chief air and space force development in Ottawa, Ontario.

Bryan: 04:03

Okay. So you were posted to Fort Bragg on an Outcan posting with the eighty second Airborne Division. How did that come about, and what was the process to get down there like?

Ian: 04:13

The RCAF has a whole bunch of different exchange programs that are on different fleets, different aircraft, all different trades. And it's opportunities for us to share experiences, knowledge, gain experience with with our allied partners on various fleets. So we have an exchange set up with the US army where we have a an American Chinook pilot comes up to us in Canada, flies with us at 04:50, and we have an opportunity to send a Canadian pilot down to The US. Just so happened that this specific exchange at the eighty second was a new exchange that had just transitioned from a training role at their training institution to a to a more operationally focused role with the the eighty second Combat Aviation Brigade in Fort Bragg. I just happened to be, again, I know we talked earlier, right place, right time, but was one of the volunteers for that exchange and happened to be selected to be lucky enough to go down and do that.

Ian: 05:11

It's a bit of an administrative process to do a posting outside of Canada, but it's pretty routine within the military. I mean, we're used to sending people overseas. We're used to having these exchanges. So doing a little bit of extra administration on the front end to get ready to prove that you're mentally and physically fit to go first of all, is kind of the baseline administrative process to go through. The big difference is trying to figure out how to move your family, especially with this Mhmm.

Ian: 05:47

Supposed to be a three three year posting was the was the initial was the initial thought. So kinda uprooting your life in Canada to move it, across a border. Lucky for me, it's an easy drive down to down to The US. Other folks going to other various parts of the world. You're trying to pack your life into a sea container to put it on a ship to try and follow you overseas.

Ian: 06:10

But that's that's part of the experience. Right? It it was a it was a really cool experience to be able to actually have that opportunity to go and learn from the Americans and to be able to share some, Canadian perspective. It's there's only within the US army, there aren't a ton of exchange positions relative to the the air force for sure. And at a place like Fort Bragg where there's 50 to 70,000 people living on that base, a good chunk of them in uniform with the eighty second Airborne Division, I think there were only four Canadians in location, and I was one of them.

Ian: 06:46

I was the only Canadian embedded in the eighty second Airborne Division at the time.

Bryan: 06:51

You mentioned bringing your family down. Now your wife is military. How did that work for going to an OUTcan posting?

Ian: 06:59

We had a couple of options that that we were assessed whether had discussed maybe potentially taking a leave of absence. Luckily, she had a couple of really good supervisors, who she had at the time who were able to offer her remote employment. So she while she was there, she was working for the Canadian Army headquarters in Ottawa remotely from from North Carolina in their in their training cell with the with the Canadian Army g four.

Bryan: 07:29

That's awesome.

Ian: 07:29

So we we we both managed to to stay employed and stay valuable to the to the military for the time that we were there.

Bryan: 07:36

Yeah. That's nice because I have heard before where people have to take leave without pay for a certain amount of time. And obviously it's nice to be able to, you know, stay employed, stay contributing to your pension, all that stuff for, you know, a number of years. Right?

Ian: 07:52

Yeah. The the calf's gotten a lot better at that over time. While we were there, they instituted what's called the service spouse employment program, which is a it's a formalized process to give opportunities like this, recognizing the unique challenges of of being a service couple. So now we have a formalized process whereby if a member's posted to an outcan or some sort of geographically dislocated unit and the family goes, that there's a there's a process whereby the the service spouse can can remain employed in their trade, in a unit they know in a in a role that actually fits their career, on within a remote setting as long as that job's available to them.

Bryan: 08:36

Okay. That's awesome. So you were already qualified on the CH one forty seven F Chinook, but that's pretty different in some ways from the CH 47 F Chinook, the Americans fly. So what kind of training did you need to get qualified with the eighty second?

Ian: 08:52

Not too much training, to be honest. As much as like a helicopter is a helicopter. Right? They've all relatively got the same controls aerodynamically. They fly a little bit differently.

Ian: 09:04

But as far as the Chinooks go, the Canadian Chinook that we fly that was, manufactured in 2013 is is one of the more modern Chinooks in the air force, but it was also manufactured in Philadelphia by by Boeing Vertical. And it's the it's essentially the same airframe that the, US army uses. So a lot of the there are a lot of similarities in terms of the flight control computers. The way the aircraft flies is identical. A lot of the the button switches, the engines, the FADEC's, they're all similar.

Ian: 09:41

We've got some unique components on the Canadian aircraft. We've got a more robust electrical system. We've got a more robust APU. We've got the fat tanks, obviously, long range fuel system to be able to give us five hours of endurance, whereas US Army, you get about two and a half hours endurance out of those aircraft. So learning some of the unique nuances of a different variant of airframe was essentially the training.

Ian: 10:11

So I I did several hours in the simulator at Fort Bragg, followed by several hours in the aircraft with instructors there locally. But it was it was easy for it to be proficiency based. And I I went down there with, pretty close to a thousand hours on on the Chinook. So it's not like I was learning a new airframe by any means. Yeah.

Ian: 10:35

So I was able to to pick it up pretty quickly, learn learn the differences, and and very rapidly be able to transition, everything I've learned in Canada to, just flying a Chinook. Right? It's it's it's not it's not it's not so different that it was it was cumbersome.

Bryan: 10:53

Yeah. Did they, if you talked about this anyways, when they heard about the upgrades we had done to our Chinooks, what did they think of that?

Ian: 11:03

They were definitely curious. The Chinooks that we have are they're also based on, this the CH 47 golf model that, special operation the US Army Special Operations uses with the one sixtieth special operations regiment.

Bryan: 11:17

Okay.

Ian: 11:18

So the it's the same kind of fat tank, long range fuel tank components that are on those aircraft. So a lot of folks were familiar with, with the one sixtieth aircraft. So it was it was easy to kind of translate it, in terms of in terms of those capabilities. Now mission systems are obviously different between the two aircraft. They've got some pretty specific mission systems specific to to their operational employment to include aero refueling capability, different radars and things than we have, which suits our Canadian needs more specifically Mhmm.

Ian: 11:52

In terms of different defensive systems that we have on our aircraft.

Bryan: 11:56

Your first large scale exercise as part of an American unit was a joint readiness training center or JRTC brigade combat exercise in Fort Polk, which is now Fort Johnson. This was a validation exercise for a brigade combat team of the famous hundred and first airborne division Screaming Eagles. Can you tell us about how this experience compared to large scale Canadian exercises you've been on?

Ian: 12:18

The purpose of JRTC was actually very similar to what was formerly known as CMTC, the Canadian Maneuver Training Centre. That was the the training facility we had out in Wainwright that we did a lot of large scale joint warfare training through the February and and twenty teens. The the purpose of that whole area is to do large scale combat. Right? Bring a bring a brigade or brigades into a maneuver area and allow them to fight against a, proper thinking enemy at scale and maneuver themselves over terrain, in a simulated combat environment to be able to prepare for real world operations.

Ian: 13:04

And these these are located all over the world. Right? There's a there's a couple in The US. There's several in The US. The the the big ones in the army are in, Fort Polk.

Ian: 13:14

They've got one in California with their national training center, and they've got another one at the Pacific, training center they've got up in Alaska. There's also ones in Europe. Canada's got their own. So they're they're familiar in that sense. The difference in operating with the US army is just the sheer scale at which they do operations.

Ian: 13:36

So if we're bringing a battalion of aircraft to bear in support of the two one zero one, so second second brigade hundred and first airborne, that that battalion's worth of aircraft in a Canadian context is very nearly the combat capability of tactical aviation in Canada right now. Wow. And we're doing that as a small contingent of a larger combat aviation brigade that we're now moving down to to Louisiana, bringing it across the country, which is another part of the maneuver. Right? How do you logistically move a brigade brigade minus battalion, depending on what your organization is, across the country to then get to the training area, to then actually be able to be combat effective and employ your capability, whatever that is.

Ian: 14:26

So in our case, it's combat helicopters. To be able to do that effectively and then offensive maneuver, defensive maneuver, debrief the whole event, and then logistically move yourself back to your main operating base, That whole thing takes about a month from from start to finish.

Bryan: 14:48

That's a huge task.

Ian: 14:50

It's very high pace. A lot of planning goes into it. It's it's pretty rapid fire. The trying to live in as austere conditions as possible during the actual combat exercise, being mobile, being tactical, trying to reduce, your real life footprint to be agile in the employment of your aircraft. So it's a it's a really, really good learning opportunity to actually, look at combat at scale.

Ian: 15:20

And I say at scale, it's it's not even in a kind of in a large scale combat environment. It's you're you're not talking about divisions on divisions at this level. You're really still just talking about, lower level maneuver units. But it it it frames your perspective on what it actually takes to to be effective in that environment.

Bryan: 15:40

And that's just crazy to think about. You mentioned that you had what was it a battalion of aircraft?

Ian: 15:46

Yeah. It was about a battalion minus. So we we brought a company worth of Blackhawks, a company worth of Apaches, and a company minus worth of Chinooks with a with a headquarters. In terms of number of aircraft, we're on the order of probably 20 to 25 helicopters in in UAS maneuvering around the battle space. Realistically, Canada, 20 to 25 helicopters is the equivalent of two squadrons in in one wing right now.

Bryan: 16:24

Wow.

Ian: 16:24

So that's that that's that's kinda how we how we have to frame our perspective in terms of how we fit into a larger fight too. And that's that's one of the benefits of this exchange is to give people experience both on the Canadian and the American side of how we would fight together, how we would conduct operations together in some sort of environment, understanding the capabilities and limitations of each of each other's of each other's organizations.

Bryan: 16:53

Mhmm. So let's shift gears and start talking about your deployment to Afghanistan. Can you tell us how you first found out you're going back to Afghanistan? And for listeners, you can hear about his first tour as a second lieutenant in episode 74.

Ian: 17:08

Yeah. The first indication we got that we were maybe going to Afghanistan was actually during one of the one of the JRTC rotations that we were doing at Fort Polk. So we were the as the primary training audience, the third battalion eighty second General Support Aviation Battalion in the eighty second CAB, our battalion headquarters, which I was in at the time, being exercised to get ready for a deployment. We knew that the unit in the eighty second Combat Aviation Brigade, broadly, was likely to see a deployment in the next twelve to sixteen months. And at some point, just in the way the Army was shuffling its maneuver units, we had some indications that we would be going to Europe.

Ian: 17:55

And then by the time we finished this, this JRTC rotation, we had found out, no, it looks like we're going to Afghanistan in 2021, to be able to rip with fourth Combat Aviation Brigade, who was who was in Afghanistan at the time starting to do some of the some of the retrograde drawdown activities over there.

Bryan: 18:15

So what was the role your unit was assigned for this tour in Afghanistan?

Ian: 18:21

As the timing works out, this was kind of the '20 mid to late twenty twenty when we first got the assignment, the mission. So we were we knew this was after president Trump had met with, with different world leaders at the the peace summit in Doha. So we had an indication that it was it was nearing the end of the Afghanistan mission and that any mission we would have over there would definitely be kinda like retrograde drawdown activities. And we were pretty sure that we would be bringing the theater down helping bring the theater down to effectively zero based on the, the proposed timelines for withdrawal. So as we were preparing for the deployment through late twenty twenty or late twenty twenty one, we were doing it with a view to make sure that we weren't bringing too much into theater and that we were preparing ourselves to be able to operate across the country because at this point, there were only probably about 20,000 people total across NATO left in Afghanistan, which sounds like a lot, but distributed across an entire country and coming down from the height of nearly a 100,000 or more in the country, we we were definitely scaling down the operations.

Ian: 19:46

And we were trying to figure out how we would, from a distributed kind of separate hubs of operations around the country, consolidate into a central location to be able to conduct retrograde in Afghanistan.

Bryan: 19:59

So it sounds like basically you had to almost plan to it's kind of that classic do more with less. Like you had you had all these different tasks that you might have to expect to do across a much wider area of operations than perhaps would normally be expected of you. But also, you have to bring the minimum possible stuff because whatever you bring into theater, you can expect it's all gotta come out.

Ian: 20:22

That's exactly it. And it's it's also doing it with a with a view to the to the threats there. Right? So understanding that you you are not actively conducting offensive combat operations, but that you need to be prepared to execute that at any time. So it's it's a fine balance of, being prepared to conduct full spectrum operations up to and including combat while acknowledging that the actual mission task you've been given within that is to to draw down retrograde and and and start to diminish the footprint that's there.

Bryan: 20:56

Mhmm. What was the workup training like before you left for Afghanistan?

Ian: 21:02

The workup training we had was focused on both the headquarters and leadership element of which I was a part at the time. I was operations officer within the headquarters of third battalion, and the actual deployed forces that we're gonna be using. So the so the aircraft maintainers, and aviation support, personnel that we're gonna be bringing over. It started with a couple of small field exercises at Fort Bragg a week at a time, deploy to the field, shake out your equipment, run a couple of small operations from a from an austere environment, come home up to that Joint Readiness Training Center rotation we did in July, August, of twenty twenty, which allowed us to exercise ourselves at at the battalion level, supporting a a full brigade. Once we once we kinda had that routine in, like, that that was a really good exercise.

Ian: 22:05

And, actually, from a battalion staff perspective, how to how to manage a battalion, how to move forces within the area of operations, and and how to, as I said, logistically get people from one place to another, acknowledging now that you're doing it in a simulated combat environment. So that that was the the profiner and sort of workup training we had. Did we go into that with a, kind of a fully fledged Afghanistan mindset of, hey. We're gonna start doing drawdown? No.

Ian: 22:37

We focused on on combat operations and offensive operations because that's that's what we needed to be prepared for at the worst end of the spectrum. Right? Yeah. If you kinda train if you train to a 100%, then anything less than that becomes easier. So that that was really the extent of the workout training we had.

Ian: 22:57

The other thing that really played a part that has to be acknowledged at this time was the state of the world in 2020. We were just coming out of what was a pretty broad worldwide shutdown with the COVID pandemic. And this was we were trying to do all of these operations, we were trying to do all of this training in a relatively constrained environment because of the limitations that have been placed on us with COVID, trying to actually take actual real life force protection measures to make sure that we weren't spreading COVID throughout a mass organization. I mean, if you take 2,000 people and you put them in a 30 kilometer square box in the middle of rural Louisiana and ask them to all sleep in the same tent and work with each other on daily basis, fight with each other on a daily basis, You're inducing a level of risk from like a health and safety risk in that environment. And that was well before there were any vaccines available or before we actually fully understood what was going on with that pandemic.

Ian: 24:08

So that was another challenge that we had to face during that time that of framed how we were able to prepare and how we were able to fight.

Bryan: 24:17

Yeah. That sounds like that would add a layer of challenge for sure. Like, I remember at the time just conducting flight training was challenging. So preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan while, you know, being careful of of mitigating the risks of COVID must have been extra extra challenging.

Ian: 24:34

Yeah. It's and it's finding that balance of what is what is valuable training and what is just risk for the sake of risk. Right? Because we we couldn't just shut down entirely. You can't you can't just stop training.

Ian: 24:46

You can't just stop being prepared. Like, the the the world's not gonna wait for you when when things start to go wrong. But you also have to do it in in a controlled manner, acknowledging the risks that you're gonna face and doing everything you can to mitigate those risks while still being an effective fighting force.

Bryan: 25:09

For sure. So while you were still stateside, President Joe Biden announced that all members shall be out of Afghanistan by 09/11/2021. When you heard that, what were your thoughts on what it would be like to deploy under those conditions?

Ian: 25:24

Well, I think the initial thoughts we had were, are we even going to deploy? It was a it was a really weird time to be getting ready to go to Afghanistan through the through the early months of 2021. Initially, when we had been fragged to take over this tour, we were told that we would deploy as early as January '21. And January 21 came, and we kinda got held back and said, hey. We don't really know how this retrograde is gonna go.

Ian: 25:54

Like, the the forces that are in theater might actually just be able to extend their tour a little bit and be able to finish up this retrograde. We may not actually need you to deploy eighty second, like, just give us a second. So there was a little bit of frustration in the in a bit of, hey. Get get on the bus. Hey.

Ian: 26:19

Get off the bus routine that we were in for a couple of months trying to figure out what the deployment would be. And I wanna say it was March 21. It was either March or April 21 when when, president Biden made that announcement. And I remember being in the battalion headquarters, actually watching it on the TV while we were standing there getting ready. We were a couple weeks away.

Ian: 26:43

We were we had actually just sent the first chalks over to Afghanistan. Like, the the first group of age 64 helicopters and crews were on a plane heading over to Afghanistan. We're in theater already when we found out that, hey, the timeline is a lot shorter than we thought it would be. And the situation we're going into with now a a deadline in place, which we didn't have before. Right?

Ian: 27:13

We kinda yeah. We knew twenty twenty one ish by the end of the year, we'd probably be leaving. But when there was actually a time and date set that said, hey, this mission that's been going on for the last twenty years is gonna be shut down, it it put a little bit of a finer point on what we had to do and the rate with which we had to do it. Mhmm.

Bryan: 27:36

So this was your second tour in Afghanistan, but in a very different role. How did you feel about it this time?

Ian: 27:42

I was definitely as excited the second time as the first time. You say a different role. I mean, the first time I had some restrictions put on me in terms of what I was actually able to do or see while I was there. I was super, super grateful for that opportunity to be able to go work in the op sell and see what that deployed environment looked like. But this time, I was I was actually in the in the battalion headquarters, part of part of the team, part of the leadership group that was a actually able to go over and and execute these operations.

Ian: 28:16

I was also flying at the time, so I was actually gonna get my chance to go flying in the country. And as we started to bear down how we would distribute our forces across the country, I found out my initial job would be to be the detachment commander of the helicopter detachment that was in Helmand Province in the southern portion of Afghanistan. And I'd be leading the last few missions of executing the withdrawal of the southern part of the country. So that was a really cool opportunity for me to to take on and and look at that as kinda coming full circle in the in the ten years since I'd been there before, going in as somebody who who didn't know a whole lot, who was seeing Kandahar at the height to then actually getting the opportunity to to close Kandahar in a Chinook.

Bryan: 29:17

So the time had come to head overseas. How did you actually get there, and did you bring your own Chinooks or take over some that were already there in theater?

Ian: 29:27

As as I said earlier, we were really looking to draw down. Like, we knew that the footprint that was going in would then eventually have to leave the country anyway. So most of what we we brought into theater was just personal equipment. In terms of the aviation that was there, we were we were falling in on the on the aircraft and assets that were already in theater outside of a outside of a couple that were changing for for maintenance reasons and and whatever. But when we got on the ground, there were I think there were still about a 115 ish helicopters spread around the country for the brigade.

Ian: 30:08

And we were working to then slowly bring that number down, retrograde from the from kind of the outlying locations in the country and and bring them back. So we didn't deploy with any of our own helicopters. We we fell in on the on the ones that were there specific especially the the Chinooks. Because I think there were still at that time, there were close to 30 Chinooks still in theater, functional and able able to be able to be used for the retrograde operations. And and that retrograde operation is very lift heavy.

Ian: 30:43

Right? Mhmm. So it's a lot of c one thirty movements going in and out of the outlying airstrips. It's a lot of CH 40 sevens going into some of the smaller places because that's the only thing that you're gonna be able to carry out pallets and boxes and a and a lot of just heavy dense equipment, either in the aircraft or slung underneath the helicopter to be able to bring it back to a central location that to continue that flow using Bagram Airfield, just North of Kabul as the as the main staging base for those retrograde operations, where daily it was dozens of c one thirties, c seventeens, c fives, I l 70 sixes. Like, pick pick your favorite cool transport plane, and they were they were flying in and out of Bagram multiple times a day every day, coming coming in empty and leaving full.

Bryan: 31:36

That's crazy.

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Bryan: 32:11

So you're a part of the general support aviation battalion. What is that, and what is it composed of?

Ian: 32:17

Third battalion eighty second cab. So third battalion eighty second combat aviation brigade is the general support aviation battalion in in the in the eighty second airborne division. And it's really unique, I guess, across the division within the the aviation brigade because it's a composite unit. So whereas, there's there's a there's Apache attack battalions or reconnaissance battalions, there's, 60 Blackhawk, lift, air assault battalions, the the GSAP, the general support aviation battalion, has a mix of 60, Lima aircraft. We had HH 60 Mike MEDEVAC aircraft, and we have the company of a CH 47 Fox Chinook aircraft for the for the heavy lift, as well as some enabling units.

Ian: 33:07

So we had a deployable air traffic control capability, that we brought with our our Foxtrot company, as well as our supply and distribution and aviation maintenance companies. So there's there's seven companies within the GSAP, which all have very distinct, operational tasks, to include command and control, with the the with the sixties. MetaVac, as I said, has a has, like, a dedicated MetaVac capability with the with the HH sixties. And then the the Chinooks, that's the only place the Chinooks are located within the division. So that company, Chinooks, within the within the GSAP actually gets, gets parceled out to support not just the battalion, not just the brigade, but the division as a whole.

Ian: 33:59

And even sometimes outside the division at at core level operations or working with external groups that need that level of lift support to what they're doing. So it was a really cool opportunity to actually work within that. And not only that, for this deployment, we were assigned a an additional company of 60 Mike Blackhawk helicopters to conduct air assault and lift, as well as a company of, h sixty four Echo Guardian aircraft, which had, which had just come online as a capability, for our attacker for the support. So we were we were we were headquartering kind of a battalion plus brigade minus organization. When we deployed, we deployed with the with with the the eighty second combat aviation brigade, with the brigade headquarters overseeing the initial part of the drawdown just because of the scale.

Ian: 35:01

And then as we started to drawdown, the brigade footprint collapsed, we really just got left with with our battalion headquarters in place.

Bryan: 35:10

You mentioned the h 60 fours. That's the Apache. How does it feel to have Apaches watching over you?

Ian: 35:16

From a Canadian perspective, it's a really, really cool feeling to see an h 64 come over the treetops in front of you. It's a it's it's a very capable aircraft. And not not just for its its its combat power and its deterrent capability. Right? But just the the number of sensors, the amount of the amount of combat capability it brings to see and shape the fight, when you're working in in an air construct.

Ian: 35:53

The is really good at lifting things. The Chinook is good at carrying things. We're not good at watching things, analyzing that data, or pushing it back. I mean, we have sensors on the aircraft, but our primary job is to move people and stuff from point a to point b quickly and efficiently. The the h 60 fours have the ability not just to they're both a sensor and an effector.

Ian: 36:19

So they have the ability to to see things, decide what those things are and and and what to do about them, and then they have the ability to put those rounds on target. And it's unfortunately, it's a capability that we lack in the in the RCAF, and have lacked for several years, decades. I I really hope in the future to to see an attack reconnaissance platform in Canada because of the capability it brings to the greater fight. Right? The Canadian Army, if you ask them, I'm sure they'd tell you that they would love a direct fire asset that can actually see and sense the fight Mhmm.

Ian: 36:56

From more than just a ground level within its two kilometer bubble. The ability to actually look out several kilometers and put effects on target at a range of several kilometers is a really, really good asset to have. And even though as we move later into into the deployment, even though we didn't have them in an offensive role to be able to have the h 60 fours with us, to be able to see the battle space, sense the battle space, and be able to push that information to us was was invaluable actually later on in that deployment.

Bryan: 37:31

Yeah. It sounds like an incredible aircraft. And you mentioned talking about the greater deployment. Let's move into that. To give us a frame of reference, how many troops were still in Afghanistan when you arrived?

Ian: 37:45

When I initially got there, April, May 2021, we had I think there was the the number that I that I had written down, I think there was about, as I said, 20,000 American and NATO members in Afghanistan at the time. And that number was drawing down quickly. I believe about half of those were contractors with the US army, Quarter to 5,000 were American military, and then there was about another 5,000 NATO coalition military. At the time when we deployed in, the Americans kinda owned the the south part of the country down in Helmand and Kandahar Province. The Americans also had kind of east and central.

Ian: 38:31

It was an American led contingent with the NATO mission at Bagram and Kabul out in Jalalabad. And then there was the Germans were in control of Mazar Al Sharif to the North and the Italian contingent had Harat out to the West. So there was still a bit of a multinational flavor. NATO was also in the middle of its drawdown activities. So when when we first got there, the combat capability across the country was was present, but it was it was rapidly shrinking as we got in there.

Bryan: 39:04

Well, yeah, especially you mentioned that at the height, there was something like a 100,000 people in theater. So you're talking about one fifth of that now.

Ian: 39:13

Well, at the height, I I think it was close to a 100,000 just Americans. Oh, wow. Not not even not notwithstanding the the NATO coalition that was there. So, it was it's it it was quite the the sea change from what I had seen ten years earlier.

Bryan: 39:30

So let's get a overall picture of what your mission there was and the drawdown. Initially, you deployed to Camp Dwyer as the aviation debt officer in charge or OIC as you've mentioned. You were working the closure of Camp Bastion, a major base in Helmand province, as well as Kandahar Airfield or CAF, trending towards the last presence in Bagram Air Base. Can you tell us about how this mission went for you and how that process went?

Ian: 39:55

I was really lucky in that the conditions were set well in advance of of our arrival with the with the eighty second. Fourth cab fourth Combat Aviation Brigade had had been doing the retrograde mission for the better part of the the year that they were over there through through 2020. So when I showed up to the to the southern part in Holmen Province, a lot of the retrograde was well underway, and we we kinda just got thrown in to do the, do the finishing tasks once fourth cabin redeployed. So I think within three days of my arrival there, we, Camp Bastion was closed, in Helmand province. And then it was only it was less than a week later that we were that we were actively doing the, the closure of Kandahar and, and Kandahar Field and flying those missions.

Bryan: 40:47

You were actually the last Canadian on the ground at Kandahar Airfield and you flew the last CH 47 F Chinook on the day before the final closure. What was it like to see these major renowned coalition bases dismantled?

Ian: 41:00

It was eerie. Like, it it was it was odd and fascinating at the same time. Flying into Kandahar for that last closure mission that we were doing, pulling like, do it doing the last lift out with the the two Chinooks that we brought in there. It flying in on approach, coming into Kandahar Field. Like, I only remembered it from the ground.

Ian: 41:28

Right? I wasn't I wasn't flying on my first tour. But the size of the base, and you could see all of, like, all the locations that I recognize, like, the all the air all the aviation ramps on the north side of the airfield were just empty. It it was really a ghost land of basically a city sized military base that was just parked in the middle of the desert. And it was it was very, very odd to see.

Ian: 41:56

And to be honest, a little bit emotional. Like as there was an acknowledgment that I knew that I was going in, I was probably the last Canadian to see it, considering the crew I was flying with were some of the last Americans to see it. And understanding what that place meant to Canada in terms of the military operations that we've been doing there since since 2001. I mean, it was there was twelve, thirteen years of hard fought combat missions in that AO, and 160 plus lives lost in that area while Canadian troops were on the ground. To close that mission was honestly a little bit emotional to actually being able to see it and understanding the the gravity of what Canada had accomplished there, and the the realization that we weren't gonna be able to have any more effect in that AO moving forward.

Ian: 43:05

So when landing on the ground in the in the middle of an empty airfield, which ten years earlier had been the busiest, single runway in use in the world at the time, and just seeing it completely deserted was, it was something to see for sure.

Bryan: 43:24

Yeah, I can only imagine, you know, you think about the sacrifices that were made there, the countless lives that were affected forever by their experiences there. And then it's all just sort of coming to an end. It must have been really, really strange.

Ian: 43:41

Yeah. Was strange is a good word for it. But there was also an acknowledgment that we were we're able to give the base back to the Afghans. Right? And I mean, hindsight, it probably feels a little bit different knowing what we know and how everything went a couple months later.

Ian: 44:01

But at the time, there there was this sense of accomplishment that that there was a little bit of finality of the mission Mhmm. And that the handover was being done. Right? We we were literally handing the keys back to the Afghans to kinda be able to take over the mission from the from the foreigners who'd been there for twenty years and be able to to have us a sense of self identity and kind of like a a sense of fulfillment in in whatever they wanted to accomplish next. So there it it it was heavy, I guess, was probably was probably the best way to describe it.

Bryan: 44:35

Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, it was always the goal, right, to, as you say, give the keys back to the Afghan people and have them manage security in their own country. And and like you said, we didn't know how that was gonna turn out months later. So it was a totally different ballgame at that point.

Ian: 44:54

Yeah. For sure. And that and that was the goal along, right, when when Canada ended its its combat mission in Qatar in in 2012. I think that that was always the ultimate goal, was to be was to be able to to have accomplished something to improve the lives of the Afghans, which we absolutely did. So that it was it was nice to have that kinda like that that experience to acknowledge that I I got to play a part in doing that final handover for for Canada.

Bryan: 45:29

Yeah. Just briefly, what was the Chinook's task during these drawdown operations? Essentially just providing lift capability?

Ian: 45:36

Yeah. It was it was a lifter. So any of the it was moving a lot of the a lot of the last equipment. So anything that we weren't leaving behind. So think think more sensitive equipment.

Ian: 45:48

So communications equipment, IT systems, weapons and ammunition, any any of the things that we wanted to make sure made it back stateside, that's the stuff that we're picking up and collecting and people. Yeah. Obviously. So so moving the people back was a key mission, especially from those areas where we had limited availability for fuel or limited availability for aircraft to get in and land. Kandahar was a little bit unique because we'd already given it up.

Ian: 46:24

And then I think it was the next night after I flew that last Chinook in was when they actually did the the the full drawdown and and closure of that base.

Bryan: 46:36

Okay. So you moved to Bagram Air Base, now as brigade chief of operations or CHOPs. From there, you flew in support of the Mazari Sharif base closure, the Jalalabad base closure, and helped manage aviation outflow from Bagram. What did this new job as CHOPs entail, and how did you balance it with flying missions?

Ian: 46:56

Yeah. So the, once once Kandahar was closed, that was kind of the the extent of our mission in the southern part of the country. So we we kind of split the debt. At that point, half the debt did a did a retrograde from from where they were based in in the South and flew back to a to a staging base in The Middle East. And we we brought our Chinooks to provide that lift support, flew them from Helmand province up back to Bagram Airfield in the central part of the country to continue doing the drawdown operations in other part of the country.

Ian: 47:34

Once I landed back at Bagram, I was back into the operation cell, and that's kinda where my job was initially. It's always what I knew I'd be doing. And that job entailed, doing the coordination of all of the the aircraft operations. So any any of the helicopter operations going on around the country, we were kinda doing the planning, coordinating, making sure we have the right assets in the right location at the right time with the right crews, to get the right equipment out of whatever location we're closing down. And this was pretty rapid fire.

Ian: 48:10

I mean, this was late May, ended up going back to Bagram. And from, I want to say mid May twenty one, through June, so that was a six week time frame, Bagram was closed. So over the course of that six weeks, we were closing down probably a base every three days in terms of the outlying outpost that we were going to. Wow. And everything was just flown back to Bagram.

Ian: 48:41

So it was it was daily nightly missions to be able to fly out into the AO, pick up whatever personnel or equipment needed to come back to Bagram, and then bring them back. And at the same time, we were we were actually coordinating the the drawdown on the airfield. So not just doing all the coordination with the external agencies, but how do we shrink our footprint in Bagram? So everything we bring back to the airfield, within a couple days, it's getting palletized, marshaled, loaded onto some lift aircraft to then be flown out of theater, to start making its way home. So the footprint on Bagram is also shrinking each day.

Ian: 49:20

So how do we do aviation support with a shrinking footprint on a massive base that's now only house housing 10 to 20% of the people that it is built to support? So it's it's coordinating the real life support of how we actually, flow people and things out of theater while still sustaining a capability there. And that that was probably the most challenging part was actually getting that sequencing correct. There was daily twice daily meetings to try and make sure that we had outflow sequencing to make sure that we didn't you don't you don't wanna remove a specific force protection capability until the very last minute when you know it needs to leave.

Bryan: 50:00

Mhmm.

Ian: 50:01

But you wanna make sure that you have a plan to get if it is I I use force protection because those are the most challenging ones to sequence. Right? So if you have, some sort of sensor capability that needs to be dismantled and brought home, well, you still want it to be able to function for your own force protection on the airfield until the very last possible minute. So how do you actually sequence that with other force protection capabilities? How do you sequence that with the, the people who are doing the force protection task and the assets that they have?

Ian: 50:35

So the vehicles, just vehicles to get around Bagram. It's a massive base. How do you flow vehicles out of the AO to but then actually still be able to function on on such a massive airbase with all of the stuff that's there? Mhmm. So decisions decisions being made in terms of which vehicles do leave, which vehicles are then handed over to the to the Afghans who take over the base.

Ian: 50:59

So that's it high complexity. So being in the operation cell during that time with how rapidly things were changing was was a was actually a really exciting time to be there, and definitely kept me busy.

Bryan: 51:15

So just a huge challenge in terms of coordinating, maintaining a presence, but at the same time, getting everything that needs to leave out.

Ian: 51:24

Yeah. That's that's the that is the crux of the problem that we're facing is how how do you get everything out and, knowing that we had that September date for everything kind of period full stop via the country. And then from that September date in the coordination and planning, we were we were actually given more explicit direction, by the commanders on the ground to be even in advance of that date. Right? There's there's there's a level of risk that comes from being on the ground too long with too little capability.

Ian: 52:02

So if you if you start to draw down and you kinda target you target a date that's broadly available publicly Mhmm. And you start to you start to bring capabilities offline and you start to send helicopters home, and now you're kinda sitting on the ground waiting for that end date. It it it just doesn't make sense tactically. Right? No.

Ian: 52:23

So we were actually moving at a pace that that really accelerated the drawdown of, Bagram to a point where, Bagram Airfield was actually handed back to the to the Afghan forces July 1. Canada Day. I remember watching it from the CP. Oh, wow.

Bryan: 52:44

So we're gonna talk about kind of an in between period. Between the scaling down of Afghanistan and the eventual fall to the Taliban, there was a bit of a strange time. Can you tell us about this period?

Ian: 52:55

Yeah. It was shortly after, almost immediately after I got back to Bagram and we were starting to do outflow, we started to hear rumors of a kind of a small force that was likely gonna stay behind on the ground in Kabul, and not actually execute the full 100% retrograde of Afghanistan. And this kind of played out over over the the intervening weeks where we're trying to figure out, what might stay behind and what it might do. As this rumor actually started to gain form of formal orders, early June, we we got an indication that we would actually be leaving a force of about 600 to six fifty US forces behind to support the diplomatic mission in Afghanistan. As things were moving along quickly with the retrograde, there was an acknowledgment that The US wanted to leave options open to be able to conduct noncombatant evacuation operations or or better known as NEO, NEO.

Ian: 54:23

So what ended up happening was we were given orders to maintain as part of that 650 person detachment, we were given orders to to plan to leave about a 100 to a 120 personnel and 10 to 15 helicopters behind to actually help support the the diplomatic mission and support the embassy in in Kabul with any sort of tasks that they might need, whether it's just just generic support tasks from from helicopter lift, utility tasks, up to and including, the potential NEO operations, the potential evacuation operations. So that happened very early June, and what what that did was, it reframed kind of my role within operations going from, hey, how do we how do we close the agram as quickly as possible to, hey, what what is this force gonna look like and how do we support it from a from a US army perspective? And what what are we as a as a as a combat aviation brigade going to be able to leave behind and what what should that footprint look like? So I started taking on a bit of a bigger role in the the planning and execution of the transition from, Bagram to Kabul.

Ian: 55:49

And what we had at this time was, finally settled on 12 helicopters, and a 115 people to to stay in Kabul proper once Bagram was closed. And we would co locate ourselves with the, with the US state department at Kabul International Airport, HCAO, we called it. So it's the Harmed Kazai International Airport. So for, I wanna say, kind of the rest of June, for about the the three weeks in June there, I actually staged forward two HCAIA, to start doing some transition activities and operations with, both US state department personnel and US army personnel and US marine corps personnel because they were located in The Middle East with the with the task to conduct the noncombatant evacuation if that if that was to occur. So we shifted the role to planning what that stay behind force would look like.

Ian: 56:55

So it was a This all happened really quickly because you think that's only three weeks after I got back from the south part of the province, and now we're we're we're kinda changing the mission again. Mhmm. But that's that's just the the nature of deployments like that. So, yeah, it was a it was a really weird transition where we we we had to continue to plan to zero in Bagram, and we had to continue to retrograde our our equipment, our personnel. But now we had to we had to do it with a view to retaining some level of capability in theater and figure out how we were then gonna support a capability in theater at Kabul from the staging locations we had in The Middle East, in this case in Kuwait, with the force package that was actually staying forward.

Bryan: 57:46

So at this time, there was no inkling that the country would soon fall to the Taliban and The US was operating under the conception that they would still need diplomats in Afghanistan?

Ian: 57:56

So I don't think there was I don't want to suggest that there was no indications. Right? As we look at the security situation, as it was moving through in June and July, it was very obviously deteriorating, especially within the country. We knew the intelligence reports that were coming in and we knew that the Afghan National Defense Force was having trouble, at some of its locations, maintaining security posture in the AO. Okay.

Ian: 58:29

We knew that district centers, were were coming under Taliban control, so I don't I don't wanna characterize it as no inkling. But at the same time, what what The US wasn't going to do was completely abandon the country. Right? They're they're they knew that they wanted to maintain a diplomatic presence in the country. So that that would come with some risk, but Kabul at the time was deemed to be a safe location.

Ian: 58:58

We still had control of the city. We still had control of the airfield. NATO was still present. Like, we did still have a couple of coalition partners in location. The the mission would shrink, but it was never really gonna go away until there was a decision made that the the diplomatic mission so the the military mission was closing.

Ian: 59:21

We we knew that the retrograde was gonna occur, and that that target date of September 11 was was always there. But from a state department type of mission, there was no indication that that the Americans were just going to leave Afghanistan entirely, and they wanted to retain diplomatic support through an embassy, both to make sure that American citizens were looked after while they were there. And the these were plans that I wanna say all partner nations had. Like, we we didn't get any indication at that time that any of the missions that had open embassies in Kabul would be closing or shutting down completely. A lot of them were talking about drawing down, and maybe maybe they were looking forward to plans.

Ian: 01:00:09

But the planning horizon that we were looking out with the diplomatic force was we we wanted to be postured to be able to support, the diplomatic mission or a noncombatant evacuation operation potentially out to the end of the calendar year. So we were looking at a planning horizon that was kind of October, December 2021. Whereas the retrograde of the military operation and the return of Bagram to the Afghan forces was still targeted for that that September 11 deadline, which ended up being July 1.

Bryan: 01:00:42

So very, very complex situation at that time.

Ian: 01:00:45

Yeah. Complex situation both in planning and security. Right? Everything we had to do had to be with an acknowledgment of the security situation that we had. But we also had we also had orders from the president of The United States that said the military missions could be closed.

Ian: 01:01:04

Right? So we we also weren't setting up for a combat mission. Right. We were looking at at rerolling if, in this case, we were operating, I think, under a title 11 mission, which was was a combat operation to include counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. The US was looking at rerolling, I think, to a title 22, which was going to be contingency operations only, right, in in support of the diplomatic mission.

Ian: 01:01:30

So the the the policy and government direction that we were being given was to cease military operations and to allow that transition to operations with the with the Afghan forces while still retaining the flexibility to be an effective diplomatic force in Kabul.

Bryan: 01:01:49

Okay.

Ian: 01:01:49

Right? So the initial indication we got to when we when we when we left that, that contingent behind on the aviation side, for sure, our mission was going to be pretty low key. Right? We we weren't necessarily going to be there to be the main show in town. We were going to be there as a contingency force, a support force, just a little bit of extra capacity to make sure that the diplomats that were there and the State Department folks doing their job had the support that they needed.

Bryan: 01:02:22

Okay.

Ian: 01:02:23

So that's, that that's kinda what happened with that force. We were a force of a 110 to a 120 with the with the aviation detachment that stayed behind. There was another 200 to 250 ish soldiers from 10th Mountain to basically, infantry companies, which stayed behind to do force protection. We had a fires, kinda like a counter rocket and mortar debt that was gonna stay back to do force protection on the airfield. We had a couple of small explosive ordnance disposal teams, that was about the extent of it.

Ian: 01:03:00

Right? We only that made up about the six hundred and six fifty US conventional forces that that remained in Afghanistan after the closure of Bagram.

Bryan: 01:03:12

And other than that, it was the Afghan National Defense Force who were providing security for the country.

Ian: 01:03:20

Yeah. Security for the country at large. That's the that was the mission. Yeah. I I should also mention that we did as I said, we still had NATO partners with us in in Kabul at the time, and we did have some Turkish forces who were providing additional force protection on the airfield, as well as the Norwegians were still running the the medical facility there.

Bryan: 01:03:46

Okay. Did you have faith that the Afghans would be able to maintain stability in the country? You personally?

Ian: 01:03:54

I was getting the same intelligence reports as everybody else, who was in there. So I I tried to maintain a clear right assessment that things were not going well.

Bryan: 01:04:04

Okay.

Ian: 01:04:06

Did I know how quickly things were gonna transition? I I don't think anybody foresaw the rate at which things were gonna deteriorate, but we all knew that the situation was not improving.

Bryan: 01:04:18

Okay.

Ian: 01:04:19

We all knew that the that the Taliban were were taking a hold in different parts of the country. We knew that district centers were falling. We knew that that provincial capitals were at risk. And as we as we move through the the the weeks through kinda late June, mid July, you you really got a sense that things were were not going well. I I don't think anybody could have foreseen what what eventually happened in in the August happening that rapidly.

Ian: 01:04:53

But we we knew that we were in a deteriorating security situation and that things were going to change where we were.

Bryan: 01:05:01

Yeah. Okay, Ian, that's where we're going to end this part. But listeners can join us next week for part two where we will pick back up. I want to thank you so much again for being on the show, for taking the time to be here, especially with your new very busy schedule and I am really looking forward to chatting again with you.

Ian: 01:05:18

Thanks, Brian. It's, it's been a pleasure. I'm really happy to be able to share this with you. Great.

Bryan: 01:05:23

Okay. That wraps up part one of our chat with Ian Wookie about his experiences as the last Canadian in Afghanistan. Tune in next week for part two of our three part series as we continue with the story. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show?

Bryan: 01:05:41

You can reach out to us at the [e-mail] or on all social media at at podpilotproject. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and Mission Aviation aircraft. As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three. That's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends, and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now.

Bryan: 01:06:06

Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you. Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.