It makes little sense to anyone who hasn鈥檛 been there. Why would anyone want to return to a place where discomfort, fear, and frustration filled most days?
Yet there isn鈥檛 a veteran of the Afghan war I鈥檝e met who doesn鈥檛 want at least a small taste of it again.
I鈥檓 not sure it's actually about the physical landscape. In fact, having been in Kandahar province, I鈥檓 pretty sure it's not. The dust stinks and there鈥檚 no shelter from the sun.
Yet the sense of belonging to it among veterans is pretty strong.
Their days there were the most intense of their lives, and the bonds among them as soldiers were intimate in ways few civilians can understand.
The nostalgia may also be a response to their difficulty integrating into an everyday life after service. Journalist and author Sebastian Junger hit a nerve in his book 鈥楾ribe鈥� where he suggested some PTSD and integration issues have very little to do with combat 鈥� after all, most having difficulty never saw it.
Rather, he suggests, the sense of detachment many veterans feel is from the society they currently live in and its values. A culture where loyalty, teamwork, and impact are rare and the rules of success are chaotic.
Whatever that longing to return is, our W5 team watched it happen for one of Canada鈥檚 highest profile wounded veterans as part of our documentary 鈥楿nconquered鈥�.
Jody Mitic is known now as an Amazing Race contestant alongside his brother Cory, an Ottawa City counsellor, and author of the books 鈥楿nflinching鈥� and 鈥楨veryday Heroes鈥�. Ten years ago, he was a sniper moving through the dark on patrol who tripped an IED that cost him his lower legs.
We had asked the organizers of the Invictus Games to help us bring Jody back to Afghanistan, to give him that moment other veterans would likely envy.
We needed the contacts Invictus CEO Michael Burns had established with the American General in charge of NATO鈥檚 ongoing war against the Taliban and now ISIS sympathizers, General John Nicholson. Only someone of his rank could open the doors needed to make this happen.
He allowed Jody, his brother, Cory, and our Senior Producer Brett Mitchell and Director of Photography Jerry Vienneau to bunk in the Kabul 鈥楪reen Zone鈥�, the walled and wired-off section of the city the U.S. military keeps secure.
He welcomed them to a mess dinner, and at one point came up to our group of Canadians and said, 鈥淚 understand you boys want to take a trip?鈥�
At dawn the next day, the general and Jody and Cory Mitic were loaded into a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter for the hour-long ride to the Bagram Airfield in Parwan province. Once there, away from the bustle of Kabul and the security of the Green Zone, and back in the dust, Jody finally got the taste he had travelled so far for.
鈥淚t smells like Afghanistan,鈥� he said.
There were many other moments like that you鈥檒l see in our documentary, where a country still very much at war settled the soul of a soldier who once fought it.
鈥淯nconquered: a W5 Invictus Games Special鈥� airs Saturday at 7pm EDT on CTV, and at 10pmEDT on CTV2. It will also be available on the
