Three Canadians Killed in Afghanistan
by C. L. Cook
 State news organ, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation is reporting three more Canadian soldiers were killed Saturday when their vehicle encountered a road-side bomb. Only days after receiving the remains of another three Canadians soldiers killed in the same manner, the bodies of Corporal Thomas James Hamilton and Privates John Michael Roy Curwin and Justin Peter Jones now begin their journey home.
Cpl. Thomas James Hamilton, left, Pte. Justin Peter Jones, centre, and Pte.
John Michael Roy Curwin, right, all members of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion,
Royal Canadian Regiment, based at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick, were killed by
an improvised explosive device Saturday in southern Afghanistan. (DND)
The three killed today brings to 103 the number of Canadians killed in Afghanistan since 2002, 99 of those dying since a change of deployment and tactics undertaken Canadian Forces in 2005.
Memorial services for the men were lightly attended, as the Canadian base outside Kandahar city was under fire Sunday. The men killed were a part of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams, were responding to reports of suspicious activity. Their patrol later encountered a bomb.
Canadian Forces says the members of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, were killed in their armour vehicle while investigating a report of a planted bomb along the same stretch of road to their base where another bombing killed three Canadians on December 5th.
The three Maritimers where all based at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, New Brunswick.
Prime minister Stephen Harper expressed the nation's profound sadness, saying:
"This tragic incident demonstrates the considerable risk faced by the exceptional men and women of the Canadian Forces as they work to promote freedom, security and democracy in Afghanistan."
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