There is a calendar hammered into the mud wall of the combat outpost in Sidon, a wild nook of Panjwaii district, that neatly sums up the Canadian experience in Afghanistan.

Dust-coated soldiers who call the severe, awkward place home strike off each day with either a red marker or blue ballpoint pen — a countdown toward the day they go home.

It has been much the same for the country they have served.

The countdown to the end of the combat mission has, in effect, been underway for more than three years since Parliament set July 2011 as the end-date for the mission.

And the longer Afghan war has dragged on, the less interested many people seem in the details, except for when it will be over.

A recent poll conducted for the Department of National Defence by Leger Marketing indicated that most Canadians had already checked out of paying attention to Afghanistan, even though troops were still in the field.

The paper calendar, which occasionally rustles in the hot breeze of Sidon, is courtesy of some non-descript American shipping company and tagged with motto: "Committed to Service."

And that's exactly what the soldiers will demonstrate early next month. They will finally slip the surly bonds of mud and filth in this ruined land and begin the long journey home, back to a nation that embraces them, but not necessarily the cause for which they fought and died.

For the first time in its history, the Canadian army will leave the battlefield while a war still rages.

It is the ultimate act of obedience, an expression of democratic principles, the same ideals that brought many soldiers into this violent, utterly broken country.

"We are leaving with our heads held up," Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard, the country's top overseas commander, said recently. "We held the line in Kandahar. We were the only ground force here for a long time."

The search for legacy runs deep within the ranks of the military, which has seen the sacrifice of 156 lives to date.

Some point to recent construction of a spider-web of paved roads throughout Panjwaii, most built by combat engineers. Inarguably, it will have the greatest long-term impact on ordinary Afghans, many of whom had been connected only by narrow, rutted paths for centuries.

The military rarely counts the amount of blacktop it has laid as a sign of victory, or the number of schools it has helped open. But the current battle group commander said both will remain long after the Canadian pullout.

"While armies may not measure their success in kilometres of roads and schools, that stuff will be part of the legacy," said Lt.-Col. Michel-Henri St-Louis, who heads the 1st Battalion Royal 22e Regiment combat group.

"I've met and worked with Afghans who've heard of a better past and are looking for a better future. Well, there are a couple of hundred, if not thousands of people in Panjwaii that can see a glimpse of that better future."

Canada went into Kandahar in late 2005 under Paul Martin's Liberals, almost by default. The most violent province in a most violent country was the only significant choice left for a prime minister eager to distinguish himself from his predecessor.

As 2007 arrived, the war settled into a vicious stalemate of cat and mouse, with the Taliban conducting a guerrilla campaign with homemade bombs as the weapons of choice.

At first, the bombs were jerry-rigged with old Soviet munitions, but as time passed and stocks dwindled, the insurgents used ammonium nitrate — fertilizer bombs — stuffed into yellow cooking oil jugs. They were harder to detect with the high-tech wizardry of the army, and incredibly lethal.

The mounting death toll, and the sense of futility that arose from seeing soldiers running between firefights in different parts of Kandahar, increased the pressure on the Harper government to withdraw the troops on schedule in February 2009.

The government assembled a blue-ribbon panel led by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, which came back in early 2008 and recommended Canada stay, but only if allies contributed more troops and the military got more support in terms of helicopters and surveillance.

It was the Conservative government, in concert with the opposition Liberals, that set the deadline of July 2011 for the end of combat operations.

The troops will come home to a nation that, according to the Defence Department's own research, is still struggling to understand what the five-and-a-half-year Kandahar mission was all about.

"There was a strong sense that they really did not know what the objectives were," the Leger Marketing survey said about focus group participants.

The study, done in September 2010, noted that Afghanistan, the topic that once seized the nation, had largely slipped from the public consciousness.

"Both focus groups and survey results demonstrated that the Afghanistan mission is not top of mind for most Canadians," said the research, which surveyed 2,002 adults. "Canadians appear more concerned with issues surrounding health care, the economy and education."

Most soldiers lapse into a stony silence when asked whether it has all been worth it. Near the end of their tour, many are just happy to go home alive with all their limbs intact.

Richards bowed his head and thought for moment before answering.

"All I can say is, as a Canadian soldier, if each day we're finding an IED and we're taking out an IED, we're saving a life," he said.

"All of the bombs we've taken out of the road: It's a good reason to be here."

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