Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan

Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan
Last Updated Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:10:51 EST
CBC News

One Canadian soldier was killed and four others were injured Thursday when their vehicle rolled over while on patrol near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.


24-year-old Private Braun Scott Woodfield of Victoria, B.C. (Courtesy DND)

No explosives or enemy combat were involved in the incident, which happened about 45 kilometres northeast of the city.

The deceased soldier has been identified as Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, 24, from Victoria, British Columbia.

The four injured soldiers are:

Sgt. Tony Nelson McIver, 31- Fredericton, N.B.
Cpl. James Edward McDonald, 32 - Pembroke, Ont.,
Cpl. Shane Dean Jones, 30 - White Rock, B.C.
Pte. Paul Schavo, 24 - London, Ont.
None received life-threatening injuries, but three are seriously injured. All were flown by an American military helicopter to a base hospital in Kandahar. Two were then flown to another hospital in Bagram for further treatment.

All the soldiers were from the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, based out of Gagetown, New Brunswick.

The light armoured vehicle, called a LAV-III, rolled over at 6 p.m. local time on a highway that connects Kabul with Kandahar, near the village of Laghman.

"It was a road accident, a single-vehicle accident," said Deputy Chief of Defence Staff Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais.

Officials say they don't yet know what the weather conditions were at the time of the rollover, only that it would have been dark outside.

MPs rose in the House of Commons for a moment of silence to honour the soldiers and their families, while the prime minister spoke from Kelowna, B.C., where he is attending the First Ministers' conference.

"I wish to convey to the families, particularly the family of Pte. Woodfield, our sympathy and our deep regret," said Paul Martin.


LAV-III armoured vehicle (AP file photo)
Eighth Canadian soldier killed

The soldier is the eighth Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002.

Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy was killed by a suicide bomber near the Canadian base near Kabul on Jan. 27, 2004.

Sgt. Robert Alan Short and Cpl. Robbie Christopher Beerenfenger died on Oct. 2, 2003 when a roadside bomb went off as their jeep patrolled southwest of Kabul.

Sgt. Marc D. Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Nathan Smith, and Pte. Richard Green were killed when a U.S. fighter jet dropped a bomb on them near Kandahar on April 18, 2002.

Roughly 250 Canadian soldiers are part of a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in and around Kandahar.

As many as 1,250 Canadian soldiers will be serving in Afghanistan by February 2006.

In early October, a suicide car bomb exploded near a Canadian patrol near Kandahar, injuring three soldiers. A number of Afghan civilians were killed in the blast.



Maybe I am posting this out of spite, because usually articles like this don't get read around here. It is important. Tragic. And a damn shame that our world is at war.

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