Lest we forget

[jeffreyab]

Canada has had its first KIA due to a fire fight with an enemy since the Korean War:

Private Robert Costall, a member of the First Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060329.w2soldier0329/BNStory/Afghanistan/home

Comments

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

I suppose this is true but it's shaving it a little fine. Canadian peacekeepers have been shot in various missions by parties in conflict (perhaps not technically by "enemies"); Canada has also lost troops in Afghanistan from friendly fire, suicide bombers, mines and bombs, and non-combat causes. Canadians have been killed in the Suez, the Golan Heights, Cyprus, Bosnia, and Haiti. Costall is the eleventh Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan.

It's sad when it happens, but rich countries have a responsibility to promote peace, which sometimes means putting good men in the way of bad men.

Milestone

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

Its still a milestone in the way it happened.

I do not know of any instance since Korea where Canadians were in an offensive firefight.

Bihac was on defence.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

To absent comrades!

[snarkactual.livejournal.com]

The Princess Pat's were a fine unit when I saw them in Afghanistan in the first year of the war.

To absent comrades.