The memorial to Canada’s casualties was originally located in Kandahar at the cenotaph on the military airfield. It has since been moved to Ottawa and re-assembled where it was unveiled in the Hall of Honour, in the Peace Tower of Canada’s national parliament buildings.
November Company patrol the streets of Kabul
during Operation ATHENA as part of the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
to help maintain security in Kabul and the
surrounding areas so that the Afghan Transitional
Authority and UN agencies could begin rebuilding
the country. © MCpl. Brian Walsh 3 RCR Batallion Group
The memorial will remain there, open to the public throughout the summer and until Remembrance Day in November. It will then travel across Canada, and also to Washington DC, before returning to Canada to an as yet undetermined permanent location in the national capital
The Afghanistan Memorial Vigil features 90 stone plaques depicting 201 people who died in the line of duty during the past dozen years of conflict.
This includes 158 members of Canada’s army, navy, and air force, a diplomat, a contractor, a journalist and 40 U.S. soldiers under Canadian command.
The plaques depict the name, photo and hometown of either an individual or multiple people, if their deaths were linked to the same event.
Unfortunately the unveiling was not without some controversy. Some families of the fallen expressed dismay, and anger, saying they weren’t given enough notification of the unveiling in Ottawa on Tuesday and so were unable to attend.
Jane Byers is the mother of Pte. David Byers, who was killed by a suicide bomber while conducting a security patrol in Afghanistan in 2006,
She said, “It’s very upsetting. This monument is like a shrine to the families. Ms. Byers, who lives in Ontario, said she first heard of the unveiling last Friday through the family of another fallen soldier but did not receive an email until Monday, when it was too late for her to attend.
Regiment in Westmount, Quebec, verifies the radio
communications with an Afghan National Army soldier,
Infantry during a training scenario at the Consolidated
Fielding Centre training area in Pol-e-Charkhi,
Afghanistan on December 17, 2012.
© MCpl Marc-Andre Gaudreault, Canadian Forces
Combat Camera
“I don’t care if Tommy-tourist gets to see it. I think the families should be allowed to see it first. And we should have been given significant amount of time to prepare or to plan to be there,” Byers said. She added that the failure to communicate has caused, “…anger and confusion. Some families don’t heal. We don’t heal, we move forward… and sometimes when things like this happen, it brings the families right back down to day zero.”
There are currently about 950 Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission to train Afghan soldiers and security forces. The Canadian presence in Afghanistan will end in March of 2014.