Private Shea Bradley: An Afghan War Veteran

Shea Bradley (centre) with parents, Janet and Patrick.

Private Shea Bradley said it was a reality check when the lights in the C-17 transport plane switched to red indicating that his aircraft had entered Afghan airspace.

It was a mixture of excitement, adventure and fear that he headed into harm's way as an infantryman in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment.

When Bradley's aircraft touched down at Kandahar Airfield in April 2010, it was the beginning of an eight-month deployment, which would become a defining time of his life.

In 1997, when Shea was 12, he moved to Goderich from Woodstock with his parents Janet and Patrick Bradley along with younger sister Lonnie and brother Quinn.

He attended GDCI and was active in figure skating and baseball. He also had an early interest in all things military and knew that he wanted to join the Canadian Forces.

In 2008, Bradley enlisted in the armed forces. His mother, Janet, manager of the Goderich LCBO, said she had mixed feelings about her son's enlistment.

“It was really scary,” she said, because she knew he was going to end up in Afghanistan but also knew he was determined to enlist because he was always interested in the army.

Bradley underwent 14 weeks of basic military training at St. Jean, Quebec and knew, from the start, that he wanted to join the infantry.

The infantry is the service branch that carries the brunt of fighting and demands the highest standards of physical fitness and courage.

After basic training, Bradley underwent advanced infantry training at CFB Meaford's Battle School. Bradley recalled that Battle School was very physically demanding, and the mental stress was intense. The course's dropout rate was high, and the instructors were tough but many, according to Bradley, had come off their third and fourth Afghan tours. They had been where the trainees were going and prepared them for battle.

In August 2009, Bradley was attached to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment at Petawawa. The battalion was being organized for an Afghan deployment and began in theatre training in October-November.

Further training at Ft. Irwin, New Mexico followed. Bradley was trained to staff a Tactical Operations Centre, giving briefings and intelligence updates. The rest of the battalion was doing work up training for combat operations in Afghanistan.

After returning to Petawawa, the battalion was given three weeks leave before deployment to Afghanistan at the end of April 2010. When he got off the aircraft at Kandahar, Bradley remembers feeling the Afghanistan’s intense heat and Kandahar’s terrible smell.

The day after his arrival, the hand-over process from his predecessor began as Bradley prepared to spend his tour at the Tactical Operations Centre in Kandahar (one of Bradley’s memories of Kandahar was the base’s Tim Hortons, which must have been a morale booster for Canadian troops).   

Yet, Bradley did not come to Afghanistan to sit at a desk, and “bitched and complained” about his desk job. As an infantryman, he wanted to be at the tip of the spear in a rifle company at the front.

After two weeks at Kandahar, the Sgt-Major pulled Bradley aside and told him that he got his wish and would replace a soldier in Charles Company based at Sperwan Ghar in southeast Afghanistan.

Years earlier, in 2006, the RCR fought and won an intense battle around Sperwan Ghar as part of Operation Medusa.  By 2010, when Bradley arrived at the Sperwan Ghar base, the insurgents were less organized but still there.

Bradley recalls that when he was attached to 1 section, 8 platoon, he had to prove himself to the other 10 men in his section.

His Sergeant was hard on him and watched him closely at first because he had not been trained for in-theatre combat. “It was a steep learning curve” recalled Bradley as he “adapted”.

His NCOs were experienced. The section sergeant was on his third tour and the Sgt-Major on his fifth Afghan tour.

Bradley's first night operation went well as they scattered the suspected insurgents. Most encounters with insurgents ended before they came in direct contact with professional Canadian soldiers. Whenever the Canadians were bumped by the Taliban, an effective quick reaction plan was in place where one platoon guarded the base, another one was out on patrol, and a quick reaction platoon was on standby to respond to any emergency.

Yet, the Taliban continued to fire into the base. The rifle fire and mortar fire was wildly inaccurate according to Bradley, although they did manage to shoot down a Canadian Chinook helicopter. Fortunately, it was a soft landing, and the crew were rescued within minutes.

They became so used to the mortar fire that Bradley recalled that on one occasion, they were playing field hockey when mortar rounds were walking into the base, hitting a local school and helipad.  Bradley and his fellow hockey players continued to play hockey despite the explosions until the Sgt-Major yelled at them to take cover.

In contrast to the inaccurate Taliban fire, the Canadians, Bradley said, were well protected by drones from the air, which provided intelligence; and all patrols were conducted with air and artillery support which could be accurately placed on any target.

The Taliban's most effective weapons were Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) which inflicted the most casualties on Canadian troops in the Afghan war.

Other operations that Bradley's Company were involved with were providing protection for the US Army Engineers and supporting Afghan National Army operations

One salient memory that Bradley had was manning a small operations post for 21 days with nothing to clean himself with but baby wipes.

Bradley remembered that they built trench structures, tunnels, a mortar pit and machine gun positions to occupy their time. It was “kind of fun” when they got to know local camel herders who traded camel rides for granola bars.

After an eight-month deployment, Bradley returned to Canada in December 2010. He had missed half of his daughter's first year. Despite planning on re-enlisting, Bradley was released from the army in the summer of 2011.

Shea's mother Janet Bradley recalled that it was the “longest eight months of her life”.

Every time a police cruiser pulled into the LCBO parking lot she feared they were bringing the worst news.

Janet said that her heart was in her throat for eight months. She said her relief was indescribable when he returned home.

Although Shea obtained a good job at the Goderich Salt Mine, Janet thought that it was a struggle for him to re-integrate into civilian life when he first returned home.

Bradley, himself, noticed that he was different when he returned and, finally, in 2017, he sought treatment for PTSD. He said it helped his recovery from his combat experience. His mother, Janet, said that she “didn't see my Shea back until the last year”.

Looking back on his time in Afghanistan, Bradley said that he was proud of his service, and not letting anyone down.

Although she is proud of her son's service, Janet said that after watching the Taliban take over the country in 2021, she thought “what a waste” of all those lives who young men and women who died to make Afghanistan a better place to live.

Janet says that her son “rarely talks about the war” but one day they were talking about whether Shea grew up in Woodstock or Goderich.

Shea paused and thought about the answer and said, “I grew up in Afghanistan”.