Good work being done in Afghanistan says former Yarmouthian

By Eric Bourque

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

A Yarmouth native getting ready for another tour of duty in Afghanistan says Canadians and others involved in the Afghan mission are making progress.

Sgt. Scott Polson, who serves with 191 Wing Construction Engineering Flight at 19 Wing Comox on Vancouver Island, is scheduled to return to Afghanistan next month.

Asked about his thoughts on the Afghan mission in a telephone interview from British Columbia, he said, “Most definitely, there’s lots of progress…We’ve been involved in a lot of the training that goes on.”

Sgt. Polson, who spent 11 years as a crewman on armoured vehicles, is a military engineer and, according to a news release issued by the Armed Forces, is “one of only 11 qualified electrical supervisors in the CF.”

“We teach Afghanis, we maintain the camps over there, so we get to see not only the camps, we actually get out, what they call outside the wire, to all the communities and stuff like that,” Sgt. Polson said. “So we get to see a lot of things first hand and all the good work that’s going on, the schools, the roads.”

Sgt. Polson grew up in Yarmouth’s south end and joined the Armed Forces after graduating from Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School in 1989.

As a local youth he was a member of the Yarmouth-area sea cadets and says he benefited greatly from that experience.

He still has family in the Yarmouth area, including his mother, Irene, but he says he doesn’t make it home much.

Aware of the political debate in this country over what Canada’s role in Afghanistan should be, he says he and others who have served – or who are serving – in Afghanistan are simply carrying out their duty.

“We go over there to do our job the best that we can,” he said.

He has been to a lot of schools and has spoken to thousands of students out West, where he lives, about the Afghan mission and says he feels strongly about the good work that is being done.

His own children – a 10-year-old boy, an eight-year-old girl – seem to understand the importance of what their father is doing, he says, even if it’s hard when he has to leave them, as he will again soon.

If things go as planned, it looks like Sgt. Polson will be back from his next tour of duty just in time for Christmas.

Referring to his family, he said, “Being in the military, it’s a special way of life. They see a lot of things and hear a lot of things that the normal kids don’t have to sort of involve themselves in. They’ve learned to adapt and they’ve accepted what I do…They know that when I’m away, I’m doing good things and they don’t dwell on the negative.”