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Injured soldiers back in Canada
Jan. 25, 2006. 01:00 AM
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER
EDMONTON—The routine is established now as Canada prepares to go to war. This is how we bring home our wounded heroes.
With care, tenderness, dignity and respect.
After a nine-hour flight from Landstuhl, Germany, no one was about to rush.
Pte. William Salikin, of Grand Forks, B.C., was brought off first; then Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey, of Halifax, then Master Cpl. Paul Franklin, of Edmonton. The men, part of a NATO peacekeeping force, were cruelly injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan on Jan. 15. The attack took the life of senior Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry.
The wounded men arrived home yesterday as the first troops for Canada's upcoming combat mission in Afghanistan are leaving for the war zone around Kandahar.
The casualties were airlifted first to Germany, where they were met by a team of military doctors flown in from Canada. The doctors waited until the last minute to decide if Bailey was fit to travel. He has massive head injuries. He and Salikin, who also has head injuries, were placed in medically induced comas for the trip home.
Franklin lost his left leg below the knee. Doctors are still fighting to save his right leg. But he was alert and wise-cracking yesterday as he came back to Canadian soil.
Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff, flew into Edmonton International airport from Ottawa in a sexy midnight blue Challenger jet to meet the sombre-hued Airbus that brought the wounded men from Germany. It touched down in the brass-bright glow of the dying sun and taxied, engines moaning softly, to a hangar away from the main airport. A specially constructed ramp was waiting to get the men off the plane and into three ambulances.
They were taken with their loved ones, including Franklin's 6-year-old son Simon, to the University of Alberta hospital.
Their platoon commander, Capt. Manuel Panchana-Moya, wheelchair-bound with leg injuries after being blown up in Kandahar last December, was also there to meet the men.
A Mountie in dress uniform provided a splash of colour amid the drab military fatigues.
As Salikin, Bailey and Franklin were painstakingly disembarked, a small executive jet scuttled by, whistling like a disrespectful boy.
Even wounded soldiers aren't exempt from Canada Customs, but the formalities were brief.
While he was on the Airbus, Hillier presented the families of the three men with Afghanistan Campaign Stars and the Southwest Asian Service Medal.
He also pinned the service medal onto Panchana-Moya.
Salikin's partner, Desirae Hasen, flew back from Germany with him yesterday. She told Canadian Press earlier that they had often talked about his chances of being hurt.
"That's part of the duty of someone in the military," she said. "It's a constant danger. He made it very clear that he might come home, he might not."
The first 140 troops left for Kandahar last Sunday with more due to leave Edmonton today for a mission lasting up to nine months. About 1,250 Canadian troops will be part of a multinational force, about 6,000 strong, to be commanded by Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser. The force, including about 4,000 British and U.S. troops, will aggressively pursue Al Qaeda, the Taliban and drug warlords in the weathered terrain of southern Afghanistan.
"We are going into a very dangerous area," Fraser told the Star last November. "We're well-trained, well-equipped and ready to deal with the threat."
And also, now, to bring home the inevitable casualties of war.
Asked if yesterday's routine would become standard, Hillier replied forcefully:
"If you mean world-class medical care, absolute support for the families and all of the dignity, care and respect they reserve, absolutely. Is that clear enough? I don't want there to be any doubt."