Rest in Peace

[Mary S]

Canadian officer becomes country's first female combat death
Thursday, May 18, 2006 Posted: 1120 GMT (1920 HKT)

Captain Nichola Goddard was Canada's first woman combat casualty since World War II.

CNN -- Heavy fighting and a suicide bombing in Afghanistan have left scores dead, including a Canadian woman army officer and a U.S. anti-narcotics agent, officials said.

Captain Nichola Goddard, 26, was killed as fighting raged overnight Wednesday and early Thursday between Taliban militants and Afghan and coalition forces in the country's troubled southwestern provinces.

Goddard is the first Canadian woman soldier to be killed since World War II and the country's first female combat soldier killed in front line action, according to Canadian media reports.

A U.S. military statement said she died in an "intelligence-based combat operation," in the Panjway district of Kandahar province -- which borders Pakistan. The fighting also left 18 Taliban extremists dead.

The statement said three Afghan soldiers were also injured in the fighting.

In a separate operation near Kandahar, another seven Taliban were killed early Thursday, the military said, adding that up to 20 more may have died in air strikes. One coalition soldier was hurt.

Reports of more fighting in neighboring Helmand province claim heavy casualties, with up to 53 Afghan soldiers and Taliban dead.

Also Thursday, a suicide car bomber rammed into two vehicles in the country's main western city of Herat, killing an American working on a counter-narcotics project and injuring two other people.

U.S. embassy spokesman Chris Harris said the contractor, whose name was not released, was working on a police training program to combat the country's booming trade in deadly drugs.

The latest violence in Afghanistan comes as NATO prepares to take over security operations from the U.S.-led coalition, which has been hunting for militants in the region since the 2001 ouster of the al Qaeda-linked Taliban regime.

Meanwhile, even as it counted its 16th combat fatality in the country, Canada narrowly voted to extend its combat mission in the country for two years, saying the fight against terrorism still had a long way to go.

In Helmand attacks, according to The Associated Press, several hundred Taliban militants assaulted a police and government headquarters at Musa Qala, a district in Helmand, 150 kilometers (95 miles) north of Kandahar.

The eight-hour battle killed nine police and wounded five, while the bodies of 14 militants were left behind, AP quoted deputy governor Amir Mohammed Akhunzaba saying.

An Interior Ministry spokesman put the casualty figure at 13 police and 40 militants, AP said.

Goddard died in a separate clash as coalition troops hunted for rebels about 50 kilometers west of Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold where attacks have been increasing in recent months.

"During the sweeps, Afghan and Canadian troops came into contact with insurgents, those who daily threaten the lives and the livelihood of the local Afghan people," Canadian Brigadier General David Fraser said in a statement.

"Captain Goddard's death was the price today of ensuring that tend of thousands of men, women and children of Afghanistan can have hope that their future will be brighter," he added.

[Willy]

[Rick Wilson]

Oh Canada!

[Dana Sheets]

Day after day they ask me
"Why do you go away?
What makes you leave your family?
I think that you should stay."

My child who's standing at the door
Clutching Daddy's hand so
Pleads again with choking voice
"Mommy, please don't go."

For me, I must answer them,
I need for them to know.
It is not for fame or glory
Or riches that I go.

I go for each of you,
For all that have a son,
For all that have a daughter
Or a special loved one.

I go that when they hurt,
Or harm's bullet has settled deep
Someone will be there for them,
To ease them as they sleep

I go to hold them as they die,
In some deserted place
To listen to their last goodbye
And still their troubled face.

I go because you can not go
And hold them when in fear
And soothe the troubled brow
As they cry for home so dear.

So when you see me pack my bags
And leave for lands so far away,
It is not hardness of the heart
Or mother's conscience gone astray
Its for love of country, freedom,
Duty and honor too,
But most of all I go
To bring them back to you.

Capt. Cheryl Lockhart, USAFR, NC 914th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron