Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services

Coppermine (Apr 15/02) - Pte. Tommy Evikhoak Harvey has a message for his friends and family: "Things are going great," for the 24-year-old infantry soldier in Afghanistan.

Harvey is a member of the Edmonton-based Third Batallion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the Canadian battle group fighting alongside the U.S.-led international force in former stronghold of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Currently in the southern city of Kandahar, Harvey spent the first few weeks handling perimeter security in the former Taliban stronghold.

"We haven't really had any engagements," he said of his shifts there, although, "we did have an incident about four or five weeks ago."

Harvey said about six Al-Qaeda personnel were detected lurking near their base camp.

"They were trying to lay mines," he said.

Camp commanders sent teams out to capture the saboteurs alive, but they managed to escape.

"That was pretty much all the fun we've had down here," said Harvey.

It was a different story in the mountainous region of Afghanistan. There, Harvey and other Patricias were choppered in for Operation Anaconda.

American and Canadian forces jointly tried to smoke out Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces from the network of tunnels that have been burrowed through the mountains.

"We thought it was going to be a hot LZ (landing zone), but luckily the LZ was cleared by U.S. Special Forces working alongside Afghan Military Forces," said Harvey.

"I tell you, it took a while for my heart rate to go down."

Harvey said he expects to remain in Afghanistan until July or August before returning to his unit's base in Edmonton.

Then he'll be taking some vacation time with his two children in Holman and his father in Kugluktuk.