Let us not forget our Canadian friends........

Canadian soldier on routine patrol killed in Kandahar collision
Last Updated Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:25:12 EST
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/03/02/davis060302.html

Cpl. Paul Davis, who was killed Thursday near Kandahar, turned down an assignment that would have kept him home in Canada because he wanted to join his friends in Afghanistan, his family said.

 
Jim Davis and his son Cpl. Paul Davis, a Canadian soldier from Bridgewater, N.S.

"He had this sense of duty, but [also] comradeship with the other people he had been training with. He felt he wanted to go with them," Jim Davis said in an interview from his home in Bridgewater, N.S.

"I am an extremely proud dad," he added. "I'm very proud of my son Paul. I believed in what he was doing, 100 per cent."


The 28-year-old Nova Scotian soldier was in the LAV III that collided with a taxi about seven kilometres west of Kandahar Thursday. Six other soldiers from CFB Shilo in Manitoba and a local interpreter were injured.

The loss of Davis is being felt throughout his camp in Afhganistan, Capt. Jay Adair, second-in-command of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Bravo Company, told the Canadian Press.

"We've lost a brother, and it's going to affect us all," he said.

Loss for a 'band of brothers'

"Bravo Company, and I mean this sincerely, is very much a band of brothers," he said.

Davis last saw his son on Jan. 23, when he flew to Winnipeg to see him before he headed over to Afghanistan.

"The image I have in my mind right now is the last glance I got from Paul when I said goodbye to him, just as he was about to board the plane," he told CBC News.

Davis described his son as extremely bright, an avid hockey player, who was nicknamed 'Smiley' because he always had a smile on his face.

Paul Davis was married and had two children, aged three and five.

"I believe Paul died serving his country and serving the free world and that's the message I would like to get out," his father said.


Nova Scotia soldier killed in Afghan crash
Last Updated Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:08:26 EST
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/03/02/cda-afghanistan060302.html

One Canadian soldier was killed and six others were injured Thursday when their armoured vehicle crashed into a taxi and flipped over during a routine patrol in Afghanistan.

 
Cpl. Paul Davis, a Canadian soldier from Bridgewater, N.S. (DND Photo)  
Cpl. Paul Davis, 28, of Bridgwater, N.S., had no vital signs when he arrived at hospital and was pronounced dead.

After the incident, four Canadian soldiers, including Davis, were airlifted by a U.S. helicopter to a military hospital in Kandahar, while three other soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were taken to hospital in an armoured ambulance.

The seriously injured soldiers are Master-Cpl. Timothy Wilson of Grande Prairie, Alta.; and Pte. Miguel Chavez, originally of San Salvador. They will be flown to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

The other injured soldiers are being treated at a Canadian military hospital in Kandahar, along with the interpreter. They are:

Pte. Nathan Justice of Dauphin, Man.
Pte. Mark Taylor of Prince Rupert, B.C.
Pte. Thomas Wong of Edmonton.
Sgt. Darren Haggerty of London, Ont.

Davis is the ninth soldier from Canada to perish in the Afghan mission. Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry was also killed in January 2006 in a roadside attack on his vehicle in Kandahar.


 
The casualties arrive by helicopter. (DND photo)  

Soldiers say the LAV III armoured vehicle flipped twice and came to a rest on its wheels after hitting the cab on a main highway about seven kilometres west of Kandahar. Officials suggested the taxi may have failed to yield.

"The accident appears to have been caused by our vehicle striking the vehicle," said Col. Tom Putt, deputy commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

The crash appears to be similar to a November accident near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that killed one soldier and injured four others.

 
The accident scene.  
Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, 24, died when the LAV III in which he was riding turned over while patrolling a local highway.

The vehicles are prone to rollovers on badly pitted or sloping roads because they have a high centre of gravity. In the six years the LAV III has been in use, two other Canadian soldiers have died and several others have been injured in a total of 10 rollover accidents.

There are 2,200 Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan, led by Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser.