CORPORAL MATTHEW DINNING
His friends say it was a fitting end for the ultimate team player: Corporal Matthew Dinning grew up as a Mustang and an Ironman, and he died as part of the "posse."
The 23-year-old from a small town in Southwestern Ontario, who spent much of his life on hockey rinks and rugby fields, had quickly positioned himself on a team of elite bodyguards within the Canadian military. Cpl. Dinning and his fellow soldiers were given the task of shadowing Brigadier-General David Fraser, the Canadian commander of forces in southern Afghanistan, who gave them their "posse" nickname.
As his pals and coaches from the rural town of Wingham reflected yesterday on his death, most of their memories and anecdotes all came back to the playing field.
He grew up playing centre for the Wingham Junior Ironmen, the local hockey team that sparked most of his friendships and consumed most of his spare time.
He was one of the students who gave the rugby program at his high school a kick start. The sport had never been taken that seriously, but when Cpl. Dinning and his crop of friends came along, coach Andy Jones found himself scheduling more practices, taking the Mustangs to provincial championships and eventually, to the United Kingdom.
"His nickname was Horse because of his long, skinny legs and he could just fly," Mr. Jones said.
The game plan was simple.
"The idea was just to toss the ball out to the wing and watch Horse go."
It was that team that generated some publicity for Cpl. Dinning's high school -- and for the town. When the team returned from a tour of Wales and England in 2001, it was at the height of fears over the foot-and-mouth virus that was ravaging livestock in Europe.
The players were greeted at Toronto's Pearson Airport by photographers and reporters, who watched while Cpl. Dinning's father handed each boy a garbage bag filled with clean clothes and directed them to a nearby hotel where they had to disinfect themselves.
That was the normal leadership role that Cpl. Dinning's father, Ontario Provincial Police Constable Lincoln Dinning, assumed in the community, his friends said yesterday, and it was one of the reasons Cpl. Dinning so desperately wanted to become a police officer.
"Everyone else that is 18, 19 -- they don't really know what they want to do. But he had his mind made up," high-school friend Jamie Chester said.
As soon as he finished high school, Cpl. Dinning enrolled in a police program in college. Shortly after, he was training to become a military police officer.
In an interview with CTV, Cpl. Dinning's father described how proud his son was to serve his country. The people in Wingham said Cpl. Dinning's mission was a source of pride for his parents. Before his son's death, Constable Dinning was recently seen with a handful of photographs taken of his son with Stephen Harper during the Prime Minister's recent visit to Afghanistan.
A few years ago, Cpl. Dinning's father delivered a Remembrance Day speech to the students at his son's high school. The police officer had volunteered in Kosovo during a Canadian peace-keeping mission, where he helped train police officers.
Prior to his son's death, he had also written a letter to Prime Minister Harper, expressing his disappointment that the new Conservative government is going to fly Parliament Hill's Canadian flag at half-mast only on Remembrance Day, ending the Liberal practice of lowering it every time a Canadian soldier is killed.
"Whenever a death happened in the military, he would get a hold of the town hall and tell them to bring it down," said Jim Dore, the town's police chief. "He was campaigning for this even before it touched his family."
--Greg McArthur
LIEUTENANT WILLIAM TURNER
Right now, somewhere on a Canadian military base in Afghanistan, there may be a very lonely bicycle.
In the weeks leading up to his mission, Lieutenant William Turner had been trying to persuade his superiors to allow him to haul his indoor training bike along with him.
His racing buddies in Edmonton weren't hopeful the request would be granted, but they wouldn't rule it out because Lt. Turner, a relative newcomer to the road-racing scene, was pretty determined -- the exact same way he was on two pedals.
"I was like 'Oh, man. You've been infected, dude,' " said Chris Check, who was a member of Lt. Turner's racing team and the co-owner of the bike shop where Lt. Turner spent much of his free time.
"The guy was just amped and excited about everything. It was kind of contagious to be around."
Lt. Turner died along with three other Canadian soldiers when a roadside bomb tore through their lightly armoured vehicle.
He was volunteering as a civilian/military co-operation officer, the same job as CaptainTrevor Greene, who was nearly killed when an Afghan man swung an axe into his head during a recent meeting with elders.
Lt. Turner, who was around 40, had talked enthusiastically about the mission and his potential to open dialogue with the villagers.
He had fallen into the job much later in life: he was a former teacher and up until his departure in March, had been delivering mail for Canada Post.
"He's not someone who is aggressive or who is into violence. He was there to help," said Guri Randhawa, another racing friend and the co-owner of Edmonton's Pedal Road Works.
Since he left for the mission, Lt. Turner sent a postcard, a letter and an e-mail to his friends at the shop. Fear was never a deterrent for him in cycling and it appears it wasn't one in Afghanistan, either.
In one of the notes, he played down a rocket-propelled grenade attack that had recently hit his base. "He said it was kind of close -- kind of a cool fireworks show," Mr. Randhawa said.
He had been doing serious prepping over the winter for this year's racing season.
His goal was to move up from Category Five --considered the least competitive level for serious racers -- to Category Four. He had spent many hours with a trainer, and at the end of the last season, he splurged on a gift for himself.
It was black and silver and made of carbon fibre. Manufactured in Italy, his Wilier model was sleek, light and costly.
"He could have spent more on that than a lot of people invest in a car," Mr. Check joked.
Mostly though, he was in the sport for the socializing. Mr. Check remembered many a practice ride they would make in the suburbs of Devon or the farmland of Ardrossan.
The two would pull up, side-by-side, and yak through laboured breathing in staccato sentences. And he was always up for a beer and a burger at Original Joes, the racer's hangout in the west side of the city.
The soldier had no trouble pulling double-duty -- talking and hiking -- with a Canadian Press reporter, who tagged along with Lt. Turner in the early days of his mission.
"I'm one of the old guys," he joked with the reporter. "I'm easily the weakest link in this group," he added.
"I'm very well protected, very well looked after."
Lt. Turner, who grew up 100 kilometres north of Toronto in the town of Elmvale, has a sister in Edmonton.
His friends said both his parents had passed away and two of his uncles, reached yesterday, said they didn't want to comment.
-- Greg McArthur
BOMBARDIER MYLES MANSELL
The terrible news came with a knock at the door at 2 a.m.
Six hours earlier, half a world away, an armoured vehicle in a convoy was destroyed by an improvised explosive device. The roadside bomb killed three Canadian soldiers at the scene, while another died soon after.
A padre was dispatched to a home in Metchosin, a suburb of Victoria
"As soon as I opened the door," recalled Matthew Mansell, "I knew it wasn't good."
His brother, Bombardier Myles Mansell, a big man with a big smile, was dead. A family had lost a son and brother, and a fiancée had lost her future husband.
Bombardier Mansell, 25, a reservist with the 5th (British Columbia) Field Regiment, died in Afghanistan on Saturday near Gumbad, about 75 kilometres north of Kandahar.He had joined the reserves a few months before graduating from Belmont Secondary eight years ago. The teenager wondered whether he might make a career of the military.
He completed basic training at CFB Shilo in Manitoba and CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick. He fought forest fires in the Okanagan three years ago, a desperate struggle that offered a rare opportunity to see immediately the results of his labours. Earlier this year, he volunteered to leave the rainforests of the West Coast for the deserts of Afghanistan. Born in Victoria in 1980, Myles Stanley John Mansell carried in his middle names the legacy of grandfathers who served in the military.
One died while he was young and the other he never met, although he came to learn about both men's service from the photographs displayed at the homes of both grandmothers.
While in the reserves, he worked at odd jobs, including a stint as a security guard as well as helping out with the family business. Mansell's and Ken's Environmental Services is a fancy name for a firm that fixed septic tanks and cleaned the bilges of the navy ships at Esquimalt. The youngest of three brothers was not adverse to getting his hands dirty.
After his parents retired, they sold the business and moved to Barriere. While building a new home, his father suffered a non-fatal heart attack. Bombardier Mansell helped complete the framing of the house, sparking an interest in carpentry. More recently, he worked with Roma Builders, helping to construct high-end homes.
Three years ago this month, at a social event for reservists in Nanaimo, he met Lindsay Sullivan. They lived together in the basement of his brother's home, and she is the person the padre was looking for when he came to the door.
Myles Mansell, who often played with his year-old niece upstairs, was eager to start a family. He was due to return home this fall and the couple had planned to be married next spring.
In one terrible instance, all plans changed and a young man's achievements became overshadowed by the reality of a life ended early.
"He was trying to do his little bit to make our world a little bit better," Matthew Mansell said. "That's the way he looked at it."
On a brilliant afternoon in his hometown yesterday, the flag was lowered in respect and mourning at the Bay Street Armoury, a Great War edifice which houses his regiment. The regimental band dedicated its annual spring concert yesterday to the memory of four soldiers.The regiment's commanding officer read the names of the fallen Canadians, before delivering a traditional command. "Stand down," Lieutenant-Colonel Dave Ross ordered. Some in the audience of 200 rubbed their eyes.
A lone horn sounded the Last Post and a padre offered a prayer for a young man and for those who knew him. "Give us the strength and courage to leave him in [God's]care," Captain John Steele said.
A soldier expected in November will be coming home sooner than planned. The news pleases no one.
--Tom Hawthorn
CORPORAL RANDY PAYNE
Even for a military man hardened by 30 years of service who understands that bad news is part of the job, the late-night knock came as a shock.
"It's hard to talk about it, to tell you the truth," said Dave Payne, whose son, Corporal Randy Payne, a member of an elite Canadian security detail, died in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan.
"He was a good soldier doing what he wanted. He knew what he was getting into. It was the same old cliché, he was happy in his work. They had so many dreams to come back to. It's a good life lost," said Mr. Payne, sobbing.
Cpl. Payne, 32, grew up an army kid as his father served in one of Canada's oldest military units, the Royal Canadian Regiment, moving the family wherever the job took them.
For the past week-and-a-half, Mr. Payne had been visiting his daughter-in-law, JodyLynn, and his grandchildren Tristan, 7, and Jasmine, 5, at CFB Wainwright, southeast of Edmonton, to help bridge the distance while his son was deployed overseas.
The knock on the door came at 12:02 a.m. Saturday. Cpl. Payne, who had been stationed in Afghanistan since February, was part of a convoy when the lightly armoured vehicle he was riding in was ripped apart by a bomb just outside the village of Gumbad.
Cpl. Payne was airlifted by a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter to a military hospital, but later died of head wounds.
"I knew there was a helluva good possibility of it, but I knew that when I went to my postings also and my wife knew that also," said Mr. Payne about the danger of the Afghanistan assignment. "She's kind of accepting the fact of what's going on. But you can never [understand]the loss of your son."
Mr. Payne struggled with it yesterday as he wrote an obituary for his hometown paper and looked at his grandchildren, who don't understand why their father won't be coming back.
"Now he's coming home in a casket," he said through tears. "All the dreams are shot."
Cpl. Payne was born in Lahr, Germany, where his father was stationed, but spent much of his youth in Eastern Ontario, growing up in Kingston and Gananoque. He loved the outdoors, sports of all kinds, and excelled at hockey.
"He played hockey as all good Canadians do," Mr. Payne said, managing a rare chuckle.
Eleven years ago, Cpl. Payne fell madly in love with the woman he would eventually marry after exchanging smiles across a parking lot during the Festival of the Islands in Gananoque.
"They were extremely in love. Extremely in love, even to this date," Mr. Payne said.
Cpl. Payne worked in telecommunications, putting together computer boards, and in quality control, but he dreamed of being a police officer.
"He had his eyes set on something and he went for it," said Mr. Payne, who encouraged his son to enlist in military policing since civilian police detachments weren't recruiting.
Cpl. Payne completed military police training at CFB Borden, near Barrie, Ont., before being posted two years ago to CFB Wainwright.
"He was known as one of the gung-ho types. He's typical military -- fair, firm and friendly," Mr. Payne said.
At home, Cpl. Payne volunteered with the Military Police Fund for Blind Children, a nationwide charity, which has been helping visually impaired young people for almost 50 years.
Cpl. Payne landed a coveted role and believed he was helping the Afghan people. He revelled in playing with the local children in his free time. Mr. Payne and his wife, Nancee, are proud of their son, but it hasn't made grieving for him any easier, he said.
"It is really hard. I don't wish it on anybody."
A funeral service will be held on Friday in Gananoque. His family asks that donations be made to the Military Police Fund for Blind Children on Cpl. Payne's behalf.
-- Dawn Walton
Greg McArthur