FORWARD OPERATING BASE SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan - The footsteps they leave in the powdery dust linger only as long as it takes for the next helicopter to land or the next gun battery to fire.
But the influence of Canadian soldiers on the lives of people in this barren, war-racked country will persist long after they're compelled to leave - even if that day comes as early as February of 2009, their commander said Sunday.
As he surveyed this mountainous Canadian outpost in the once-treacherous Panjwaii district west of Kandahar city, Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant offered a diplomat's take on the debate about how much longer Canada should stay in Afghanistan.
A lot of good has been done in the last five years, and a lot more can happen in the next two, he said.
Whether any of it will be enough remains an open question.
"I think the jury is still out whether we will be at a position whether we can leave the country (in 2009), whether the international community can leave, but we will certainly have made huge progress," Grant told The Canadian Press in an interview.
"It's taken 30 years of combat and warfare to make this country the way it is. Can we undo all of that in five years? I don't think so."
Grant shook hands with soldiers as he toured the base, expressing his gratitude to the men of B Troop from the 2nd Royal Canadian Horse Artillery for the thunderous firepower they provided in recent weeks in neighbouring Helmand province, helping coalition troops advance on pockets of Taliban resistance.
He also examined the angry-looking, Russian-made D30 Howitzer cannons those same Canadian gunners will be using to bombard nearby mountainsides in the coming days as they train a ragtag bunch of local fighters who are their counterparts in the Afghan National Army.
It's going to be a substantial task over the next two years for NATO to help those local forces get up to speed as an effective security force once coalition troops are gone, Grant said.
"Can we fix them in two years? I'm not sure," he said, but adding the local army has come a long way in the short time they've trained with NATO forces.
"We can certainly make them much better than they are in two years, and that's where our focus is right now."
In Ottawa, the opposition Liberals, hoping to seize on waning public support for the war and political vulnerability in the governing Conservatives after eight Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan two weeks ago, have tabled a motion committing the Tories to begin withdrawing Canadian troops in February 2009.
Without the support of the New Democrats, who want an immediate withdrawal, the motion is unlikely to survive, let alone force an election. But it serves to illustrate the fact that the political dynamic in Ottawa remains a significant force acting not only on the fate of Canadian soldiers here but also the Afghan locals seeking some semblance of a normal life.
Sperwan Ghar sits at the heart of a hard-won tract of grape fields, poppy fields and walled compounds in the once-perilous Panjwaii district, where Canadian soldiers suffered some of their heaviest losses in pitched battles last summer and fall with stubborn Taliban fighters.
At the top of the hill, soldiers keep a constant lookout over the Arghandab River from atop the ruins of what looks like an old cement cistern, which bears the imprint of a scimitar with the words "Taliban meeting place" written in Arabic.
It's a far quieter place than it was at the height of Operation Medusa last year, which killed six Canadians and wounded 32 more in dozens of bomb attacks, ambushes and battles, according to reports compiled by CP.
Today, thousands of locals have been allowed back into the area, and farmers are busy irrigating grape fields while children play soccer in the fields - a direct legacy of Canada's presence in Panjwaii and also the Zhari district to the north, said Grant.
"Every day, you just look out here and the fields are being tended, the villages are full of folks, children are out playing - normality has returned to this area," he said.
"We now have the ability to project our forces anywhere we want at any time, and that's making a big difference. It's keeping the Taliban off-guard; we're attacking their leadership, which is making it more and more difficult for them to take co-ordinated action against us."
The downside, of course, is that the Taliban has been reduced to what Grant described as "true terrorist activities" - roadside attacks with improvised explosive devices and suicide bombings such as those that claimed the lives of eight Canadian troops two weeks ago, as well as a Dutch and a U.S. soldier killed in Helmand on Friday.
Such attacks, which often exact an even higher toll on Afghan civilians than they do on coalition forces, comprise the Taliban's best efforts at a so-called "spring offensive," Grant said.
"I think what we're seeing right now the best the Taliban can muster in light of the operations we have conducted," he said.
"What's really important is that those operations set the conditions for reconstruction and development in these areas."
He also acknowledged the potential for increased activity in the area come the end of April, when poppy-growing season is over and the region's fighting-age men are expected to make a return to the battlefield.
That's where reconstruction efforts and reaching out to the local community can also make a difference, to divert potential insurgents away from Taliban influence and into more constructive pursuits, he added.
