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Ian Robertson - Toronto Sun
CFB TRENTON —
Fellow soldier Shane Browne kept a promise to his
pal, Pte. Justin Jones: if either was killed in
Afghanistan, the survivor would take him home.
Browne was on the CC-177 cargo plane yesterday that
carried the bodies of Jones, Pte. John Curwin and
Cpl. Thomas Hamilton to Canada’s biggest military
airbase. The three members of the 2nd Battalion,
Royal Canadian Regiment based at CFB Gagetown were
killed Saturday by a roadside bomb about 14 km west
of Kandahar. Their deaths raised to 103 the number
of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
About 35 relatives, “assisting officers” and padres
attended the sombre repatriation ceremony, the
second in less than a week. Gov.-Gen. Michaelle
Jean, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Chief of
Defence Staff, Gen. Walt Natynczyk also turned out.
More than 200 military personnel marched towards the
large gray aircraft and waited as comrades carried
the caskets draped in the Maple Leaf in a slow walk
to the hearses. A kilted piper played a lament and
everyone in uniform saluted, including OPP, Toronto
Police and military officers.
Before offering condolences to the families,
soldiers saluted their fallen comrade’s coffins.
Among the more than 100 people who lined the fence
that rings the runways were Bill and JoAnn
Richardson, whose son-in-law Shane Browne was Jones’
buddy.
On a fishing trip in New Brunswick last September,
Browne and Jones “made a pact, that if anything ever
happened to one of them, the other would never leave
him.” Richardson said.
“Bill, I won’t leave Justin until he’s in the
ground,” Richardson said Browne told him by phone
from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, as he accompanied his
friend’s body home to Canada.
“They’re like family,” Richardson, 56, said of the
RCR comrades.
He said Browne was on duty elsewhere with the
Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team when the
bomb killed his best friend and the other two
soldiers. “Shane was on a different patrol and they
all gathered around him and put their arms around
him and said Justin was killed …
“He was just 20 … Justin’s 21st birthday was Sunday
and he was killed the day before.”
Shane Browne’s son, Braden Kelly, was born in
September and the new dad has been granted Christmas
leave because of his firstborn’s birth, Richardson
said. “He’ll be home for Christmas, but it will be
pretty rough. He then has to go back to Afghanistan
to finish his tour in April.”
After the 75-minute repatriation ceremony, OPP and
Toronto officers in marked cruisers escorted the
hearses along Hwy. 401 to the Centre for Forensic
Sciences. Autopsies will be performed before the
three bodies are released for funerals.
Families were brought to the hearses before the
journey on the Highway of Heroes — where overpasses
were lined with people saluting and paying silent
tribute, several carrying flags.