'New Guns For A Bang-Up Job', The Globe and Mail, 9 April 2008

EXCERPT: "A perennial late-sleeper is assigned the enemy role and hunches behind a large rock while his Afghan National Army comrades advance in waves across the gravel helicopter pad. This is not a live-fire exercise, so the target aims his weapon and mimics the noise of an assault rifle. Afghans drop to the prone position while Canadian advisers watch and make mental notes. The attacking group gets close enough to lob a stone, and, with the enemy hit by this 'grenade,' several soldiers overrun his position. One grabs the target's rifle and then doubles back to search him. What's different about this scene is that the men are showing a discipline lacking even a year ago. And they're all wielding the C7 rifle, a variant of the American M16, donated by Canada and finally making its way to the battlefield here. About one-fifth of the ANA soldiers in Kandahar province will ultimately be equipped with the surplus weapons. It's an older version of the C7 that can't accommodate the scopes Canadians now use, but it still represents a technological shift for the 2,500 soldiers destined to receive them."

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