No Peace To Keep

“The situation in Maliis dire, and it’s not going to be improved overnight”

- Richard Poplak

IN LATE NOVEMBER, I was hustled onto a CH-147F Chinook sitting in a dusty airfield in northeastern Mali. The helicopter, provided by Canada’s military and carrying a Canadian medical-evacuation team of fifteen people, waited on the tarmac as its rotors spun for ten minutes, building from a steady roar to a wall of sound. We lifted off at a stately pace, tracking the runway, then banked sharply into the desert.

Flying alongside were two CH-146 Griffons, smaller gunships armed with .70- and .50-caliber machine guns, the latter of which can fire over 1,000 rounds a minute. Our Chinook — a double-rotor chopper that resembled a vast armour-plated dachshund — was retrofitted to serve as an airborne ambulance, its floor covered with plastic sheeting designed to slough off the gore of the wounded. On board, the medical crew immediately began unpacking equipment and stringing up bags of blood in preparation for the patients to be picked up, while the gunners shot at targets in the scrubland, spitting shells into the cabin.

As everyone scrabbled on knee pads, their activity increasing the closer we came to the site, it was easy to forget that what I was watching was, in fact, a training exercise concerning the rescue of three pretend casualties. The professional warriors, pilots, and medics on the Chinook had accumulated thousands of hours of expertise in their respective fields; these drills were meant to keep them battle ready. When we hit the ground in a cyclone of sand, the team exited quickly, jogging over a dry creek bed into a clearing. The Griffons circled while a team of German soldiers formed an armed perimeter. Two of their number were already on gurneys, faking an array of injuries, alongside a waterbottle doll pretzelled into a configuration of pain. They were rushed back on board, where the medical procedures began in earnest.