Residents line the road as five hearses carrying the remains of four fallen Canadian soldiers and Michelle Lang, a Canwest journalist from Calgary, Alberta, embedded with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, drive past during a repatriation ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, January 3, 2010.MIKE CASSESE
Grieving loved ones, their wind-bitten faces taut with grief, placed single white roses atop Michelle Lang's flag-shrouded casket Sunday as the bodies of the award-winning Calgary journalist and four Canadian soldiers were returned to Canadian soil.
To the now-familiar strains of a piper's lament, pallbearers carried the casket to one of a line of waiting hearses, where a large contingent of family members and friends, linked arm-in-arm, emerged from beneath a shelter to bid Ms. Lang, 34, a final farewell.
Michael Louie, the man Ms. Lang was to marry this summer, carried a single red rose and wept openly as he approached the vehicle, while others around him pulled each other close.
One by one, the ritual repeated for each of the men Ms. Lang died alongside - Sgt. George Miok, 28; Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28; Cpl. Zachery McCormack, 21; and Pte. Garrett Chidley, 21 - during a bitterly cold repatriation ceremony at CFB Trenton, Ont., an hour's drive east of Toronto.
The five were killed Wednesday when the armoured vehicle they were travelling in was struck by a massive roadside-bomb blast on the outskirts of Kandahar city - the third-bloodiest day for Canadian forces since the Afghan mission began in 2002.
Along with the contingent of family members, Governor-General Michaelle Jean, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and General Walt Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff, were also on hand to pay their respects.
Ms. Lang, who was on assignment in Kandahar for Canwest News Service, was the first Canadian journalist to be killed while covering the mission. A National Newspaper Award winner, she had been in Afghanistan for little more than two weeks.
Only on two other occasions has the single-day toll been deadlier for Canada: in the spring and summer of 2007, two IED blasts just three months apart each claimed the lives of six Canadian troops.
Sgt. Miok, an Edmonton-based reservist and a junior high school teacher, often told his family of his overseas military missions, "I'm just off to save the world. Somebody has to."
He hailed from the bedroom community of Sherwood Park, Alta., outside Edmonton, and was described as a long-time member of a Hungarian folk dance group and an avid athlete who loved soccer, baseball, hockey, football and rugby.
A combat engineer who served in Bosnia in 2002 and did his first tour in Afghanistan in 2006, Sgt. Miok was a little conflicted between his love for the military and his love of teaching, said David Moss, 54, a colleague at Edmonton's St. Cecilia Junior High School.
Sgt. Taylor, a reservist from Yarmouth, N.S. who served with the 84 Independent Field Battery, so believed in the Afghan mission that he had prepared a public statement defending the cause to be released in the event of his death.
The "mission in Afghanistan is vital for us not only as Canadians but as human beings," Taylor wrote, describing the mission as a chance for Canadians to help Afghans develop solutions to Afghan problems.
His fellow soldiers called him "Sgt. Morale," while family and friends knew Taylor as a young man with a passion for humanity, often volunteering with youth in his community.
Cpl. McCormack was also from Sherwood Park and a member of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment. Family described him as a vibrant young man at the heart of a large, caring family who thought of him as a "gentle soul" who cared deeply about those he loved.
Pte. Chidley, 21, was born in Cambridge, Ont., but was raised in Langley, B.C. Known to his fellow soldiers as "Chiddels," he was a member of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based at CFB Shilo, Man.
Pte. Chidley was also a member of the Kandahar provincial reconstruction team supporting development in Afghanistan and was on his first tour of duty overseas.
In all, 138 Canadian soldiers and two civilians have died as part of Canada's eight-year mission in Afghanistan.