# Canadian contingent in Kabul erects memorial to comrades killed in Afghanistan



## Spr.Earl (9 Nov 2003)

Sunday, Nov 09, 2003   


Canadian contingent in Kabul erects memorial to comrades killed in Afghanistan 

KABUL (CP) - The newest memorial to Canada‘s soldiers rests on a gravelled parade square where once a king‘s garden fell to ruin in wars for which there is little written history and sparse remembrance. 
Sgt. Robert Short and Cpl. Robbie Beerenfenger died Oct. 2 when their unarmoured Iltis jeep struck an anti-tank mine in a creekbed just 3Â½ kilometres from the site where they were encamped. 

Now a two-tonne boulder, taken from the area in which they were killed, rests in concrete beneath four flagpoles, alongside the mess halls where the two soldiers relaxed and talked about soldiering, families and hockey. 

It is probably the most frequented area of Camp Julien, named for George Julien, a native Canadian army corporal awarded the Military Medal for heroic actions on Hill 187 in Korea 50 years ago. 




The memorial site is a common ground bordered by kitchens, mess halls and the ever-present Canex retail store - where troops go to get a little taste of home. 

It is the site where Prime Minister Jean Chretien paid his last visit to Canadian troops, expressing sorrow for their loss, and where Maj.-Gen. Andrew Leslie fielded pointed questions from troops about the army‘s scheduled replacement for the vehicle in which Short and Beerenfenger died. 

The 3Â½-square-metre memorial, with two marble plinths surrounded by a small marble foundation and a chain-link barrier, also pays tribute to four Canadian paratroopers who died in a friendly-fire incident near Kandahar last year. 

It was designed by the camp commandant, Capt. Sean McDowell. 

McDowell, an engineer by trade, had never designed a memorial before. He said he envisioned something that reflected Afghanistan and its people before he sat down and started coming up with a series of drawings. 

"It seemed appropriate," said McDowell. "Other missions, like Bosnia, have got them. Theirs seem a little more cemetery-like. They‘ve gone for marble headstones with all the names on them. 

"I didn‘t have to bow down to that sort of design. It just strikes me as a little odd, or wrong." 

McDowell was ideally suited for the job. In his role as the man responsible for camp services, he had the connections to get the job done by Remembrance Day, Nov. 11, when the memorial will be officially unveiled. 

He ordered in gravel samples from construction sites all over the area, choosing a distinctive white to form the square surrounding the monuments. 


The plinths, or marble-covered posts on either side of the boulder, will contain English and French inscriptions: "Dedicated to those Canadians who gave their lives in the service of peace while serving in Afghanistan." 

The boulder, a blend of stone that includes quartz, will have plaques commemorating Short, Beerenfenger and the four killed by a U.S. bomb on April 17, 2002: Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green and Pte. Nathan Smith. 

McDowell originally wanted to sandblast a map of Afghanistan in the rock, but neither the tools nor the expertise could be found locally. 

He ended up soliciting the aid of Calgary artisan Rod McLeod, who donated a copy of the plaque he laser-etched for a memorial in Kandahar last year with a relief map of Afghanistan and the names and pictures of the four friendly-fire victims. A second plaque will depict Short and Beerenfenger. 

A local stonemason and Afghan labourers constructed the memorial in about a week. 

The area was once the domain of nomads, who grazed their cattle on fields enriched by pre-drought rains. 

It was later declared as palace grounds before the grandiose home of King Amanullah Khan was built in 1919. The second palace, for his queen, Maleka Sorya, was finished atop a hill overlooking the grounds in 1922. 

The palaces that border the base at either end now lie in ruin. The grounds - once sprawling gardens rich with trees, flowers and fountains - became battlefields, yielding shell-casings and spent ammunition rounds when Canadian engineers moved in to begin constructing the camp last spring. 

For years, under the Soviet occupation, the palaces were used as Defence Ministry headquarters, said Ahsan, a local resident. A puppet president, Hafeez Ullah, was assassinated in the Queen‘s Palace. 

Later, the forces of northern alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood fought here, helping to oust the Soviets in 1989. Masood then fought pitched battles with a rival warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now a terrorist leader. 

Hekmatyar was holed up in the rugged mountains five kilometres to the east. Masood held the open ground, pummelled by a rain of rockets, mortars and artillery rounds until it was unrecognizable from its former glory. 

Many Afghans died on this dusty plain, but their sacrifices are noted only by green martyr flags flying over simple stone graves, most without names or notations. 

When Canadian soldiers pull up stakes nine months from now, or later, McDowell hopes they will take the memorial with them. 

"Ideally, I would like to see that whole thing as it stands now in place in Ottawa someplace," he said. "Perhaps at the National War Museum."


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## Armymedic (12 Nov 2003)

Or maybe it can stay there as a memorial for the people there to remeber the people who died in the effort to rebuilt thier country...

And we build them a nicer one at the war memorial.....Naming those 6 with the 120 other Canadian who lost thier lives in the service of peace in the last 40 yrs.


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