Although I have never met you, last night, you entered my small world dramatically when I heard an exclamation of shock from the living room where the evening news announced your death in a fire fight in Afghanistan, and my military daughter wept bitter tears for the loss of a classmate at the Royal Military College, a fellow combat arms Officer, and a friend.           

Afghanistan - so very far away, so remote from our everyday lives. Pictures show a dusty mountainous inhospitable country whose people live in ways we can not begin to even comprehend in Canada. What exactly are we doing there? Why are we, a peace loving country, so suddenly embroiled in a vicious war? What will be its final cost?           

Over the past few months, we have had many heated discussions in our family about the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan. I'm sure you heard the pros and cons many times, and likely discussed them with your own family. Yes, Canada should stand up and be prepared to help out in making a safer world, but there are also questions of personnel stretched too thinly, poor equipment, under funding, inadequate training, soldiers who are told what they can say to the media, and politics, always politics. When I pointed out that our new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, at least cared enough to go personally to Afghanistan to take a look, my comments were met with cynicism. Would they ever allow him to see anything but a carefully vetted picture? Military men are always aware of their future promotions too. In the end, my arguments usually sputtered to a stop, when my daughter exclaimed, “Mom, people I know are going to die there, and for what?” There is no response to that.           

So we watch your picture flash across the screen, as you stride ahead of Lisa Laflamme, who is trying gamely to keep up with you during her interview. You smile with confidence as you talk of your love for your job. You look, sunburned, happy, healthy, an army's dream public relations candidate, on your very first overseas mission!           

And you look so young. Does any 26-year-old Canadian kid, even when told the circumstances are dangerous, ever truly believe he or she might die? Will your sacrifice have meaning?           

Last year, I taught a young Afghani girl, struggling as a new immigrant to cope with the culture shock of coming to Canada, going to school with Canadian teenagers, and having to learn to speak and write English., She worked twice as hard as any other student to improve, always coming equipped to English class with her dictionary and thesaurus, and writing and rewriting her assignments trying to make them better. She found it difficult to understand her classmates who were somewhat more lackadaisical in their approach to school work, and puzzled by her zeal and commitment.   

 Occasionally, she talked to us about the Taliban's destruction of her country's historical treasures and culture, about trying to study when there were no lights,   and education for girls was forbidden. The pictures she brought to class were the first beautiful photos I had ever seen of Afghanistan. Once, a loud noise in the classroom sent her scuttling under her desk, because she was used to gunfire. She spoke passionately about her country and explained that someday, she would like to return and help out there. She will, I know, be grateful for your sacrifice to help her country, and she will have great respect for you as a strong young  woman so committed to justice and freedom. I suspect many young Afghani women will echo her sentiments.  

Back home in Canada it's the beginning of “May two four weekend”, the holiday which often celebrates the careless innocence of youth, and officially kicks off summer, but at our house the atmosphere is somewhat subdued. There have been emails and phone calls; finally, the car door slams, and my daughter leaves somberly for Camp Borden.  

All across Canada, there will be small groups of your friends and classmates who will get together this weekend to remember you and reminisce. That in itself says much about your accomplishments.           

You are also, however, an English Major, and so I will close with a poem which you will surely recognize. Rupert Brooke, the author, died in 1915 during WW I. He wrote about the dangers of fighting far from home, of missing his own country, England, and although you will come home to Canada, the sentiments expressed remain the same.    

Nearly a hundred years have passed, since these words were penned, but some things, it seems, never ever change.  

The Soldier 

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace under an English heaven.           

Rupert Brooke