“Supporting UNPROFOR will be some quisling elements of the RCMP. These guys will be loyal to Ménard. So they’ve got their own Maynard to idolize. How ironically coincidental.

“I should also mention that we’ll be in a different situation than the resistance down in the States. They’re doing their fighting in the midst of a grid-down collapse. But here, the hydro grids are up—although the economy is still a shambles—which will cause some peculiarities. For example, the UN garrison and motor pools will all be lit up with security vapor lights.”

Alan interrupted, “We have to be careful about directing any fire on RCMP cars, because these are local cops, and we don’t want the local populace turning against us. So I think that we should concentrate on sabotaging the RCMP’s vehicles and radio towers. If we keep them immobile and incommunicado, then they won’t be much of a theat. But if we start picking off Mounties, then we’ll turn their relatives into UN loyalists.”

The land units of the Canadian army—including reserve units—had all been disarmed and disbanded a year before, when UNPROFOR declared them “unreliable.” Nearly all of their vehicles and weapons ended up in the hands of UNPROFOR—although two Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) and Lord Strathcona’s Horse (LdSH) armories suffered “mysterious thefts” of nearly all of their small arms in the days just before the announced armory takeovers.

•   •   •

The French UNPROFOR troops were fiends for planting land mines in large quantity, and making intricate maps of where they had been planted, complete with GPS coordinates. But the region was so lightly populated that the majority of the inflicted casualties were on deer, and the main beneficiaries were bald eagles, ravens, and other scavengers.

Their favorite method was to use a land mine–planting machine to bury mines alongside roads. The placement of these mines was so regular (usually with mines spaced exactly four meters apart) and so obvious that the resistance soon learned how to dig them up and defuse them.

The resistance quickly learned—the hard way—to check for stacked mines, where a pressure-release mine was buried beneath a standard mine, to act as an antihandling device.

A resistance cottage industry was quickly established using a sheet metal brake and tin snips to make disarming clips for the mines. Disarming pins were usually just wire from paper clips. Hundreds of the plastic-bodied mines, of four different types (three antipersonnel and one antivehicular), were collected. Many of these were disassembled and their explosive charges and detonators were repurposed into homemade Claymore mines and various types of IEDs.

30

TOP CONDITION

Believe in your cause. The stronger your belief, the stronger your motivation and perseverance will be. You must know it in your heart that it is a worthwhile cause and that you are fighting the good fight. Whether it is the need to contribute or the belief in a greater good, for your buddy, for the team or for your country, find a reason that keeps your fire burning. You will need this fire when the times get tough. It will help you through when you are physically exhausted and mentally broken and you can only see far enough to take the next step.

—MSG Paul R. Howe, U.S. Army Retired, from Leadership and Training for the Fight: A Few Thoughts on Leadership and Training from a Former Special Operations Soldier

Whistler, British Columbia—Three Years Before the Crunch

The men had met by chance at the annual Ironman triathlon competition in Whistler, British Columbia. Their meeting had been precipitated by the mere sight of a red-and-white diver’s flag sticker on the back of one of their bicycle helmets. Two of the men were from Vancouver, and two were from nearby Coquitlam. All four men were triathletes in their late twenties, and all four were recreational scuba divers. At the tail end of a thirty-minute session of swapping diving stories, they exchanged e-mail addresses and agreed to meet in a few weeks to dive “The Wall” at Ansell Point, near West Vancouver.

When they met for the dive, they learned of even more coincidences in their lives: All four men were conservatives and members of Methodist churches. Eventually, as the French invasion swept through Alberta, they formed a resistance cell that was part of the informal Nous sommes la résistance (NLR) umbrella organization.

•   •   •

The NLR got its start with aboriginal and mixed blood (métis) people in Quebec, but it soon spread throughout Canada by word of mouth. Since it was a leaderless movement, it was impossible for UNPROFOR and the Canadian puppet government to stop. Aside from some motivational and general guidance documents that were widely distributed nationwide, the NLR leadership exerted no control of local resistance groups and had no communication with them. In effect, NLR was a philosophical leadership for the resistance cells, rather than a command structure.

While the NLR’s detached relationship and leaderless cells made it extremely difficult for UNPROFOR to penetrate the resistance, their lack of centralized control also became a weakness when resistance units occasionally showed poor judgment in picking individual targets, or failed to exercise fire discipline and caused collateral damage. Such acts tarnished the image of the entire resistance movement. On several occasions the occupational government was caught attempting to pin blame on resistance groups for massacres that they themselves had committed.

There was a huge variety of resistance cell structures and methodologies. This added to their unpredictability, which made locating and eliminating them difficult. The majority of the cells were dedicated to sabotage. Others had traditional infantry squad or even platoon structure, and could handle multiple tasks, including sabotage, demolition, raids, and ambushes. Some of the most successful Canadian resistance cells patterned their field organization on the USMC’s Scout Sniper Team organizational concept. The teams ranged from four to six individuals. Unlike the Marines, they typically used two scoped bolt-action rifles instead of a machine gun and a sniper rifle. The heavy weapons carried by their two-man security elements varied widely, depending on the weapons that they were able to scavenge on the battlefield. The fifth man was usually a radio operator/rifleman, and the sixth man filled a variety of roles, ranging from RPV controller to demolitions man.

One of the first engagements between the NLR and UNPROFOR dismounted infantry was near Indian Head, Saskatchewan. The shooting started when six NLR fighters armed with scoped deer rifles engaged two squads of French infantry armed with FAMAS bullpups, across an open field. The resistance wisely opened fire at 570 yards. The French returned fire, but their 5.56 rifles lacked sufficient accuracy at that range. Instead of calling for fire support or a gunship, the French patrol leader attempted to outfire and outmaneuver their enemy. The end result was fourteen dead for UNPROFOR, and fourteen captured weapons. The NLR lost only one man in the extended firefight. This incident illustrated the mismatch in small arms. In essence the occupiers had three-hundred-yard-capable rifles, while the resistance had six-hundred-yard (or longer) range rifles.

In recent years, the preferred “budget” elk and caribou rifle in western Canada had been the Remington Model 770, chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum, with a twenty-four-inch barrel. These rifles could be found new, and factory-equipped with a 3–9x40 variable scope for less than $375, or less than $500 in the more weather-resistant stainless steel variant with camouflage stock. The scopes were already bore-sighted at the factory. One of these rifles, along with a few spare four-round detachable magazines was, effectively an “off the shelf” sniper rifle capable of six-hundred-plus-yard shots on man-size targets.