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Major Mendes honoured
By IAN ELLIOT, SUN MEDIA
Both of Major Michelle Mendes's families -- military and civilian -- said goodbye to her over the weekend.
The soldier was found dead in her living quarters at Kandahar Air Field on April 23. Her death is still under investigation by the military
Mendes's body was returned to Kingston for a funeral service at Sydenham Street United Church on Friday followed by a memorial at St. Andrew's United Church in Grafton on Saturday afternoon.
Only 30 years old, Mendes was one of the two highest-ranking members of Canada's military to die in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2002. In all, 118 Canadians have died in that country.
Hundreds of mourners packed both churches to pay their respects.
On Saturday in Grafton a number of seats were set up outside the church for mourners who could not get a seat inside.
Mendes' uncle, Bill Pratt, said when he spoke to a man at the repatriation in Ottawa that "Michelle was a special person to everyone she met and worked with."
He told those attending Saturday's memorial that "her mission was to make the world a better place.
"I am certain the Lord said, 'My special child, I am taking you home.""
After the service, Mendes's relatives and other mourners left the church, but paused while 21 birds were released by two Legion members.
Legion members from Colborne, Cobourg, Grafton, Brighton and Warkworth formed an honour guard while the procession left for a private ceremony.
In Kingston on Friday, the flag-draped casket was carried into the church by an honour guard from Mendes's Ottawa unit, the chief of defence intelligence (CDI).
Her parents, Ron and Dianne Knight, clung to each other with faces crumpled in grief as they watched the pallbearers remove the casket from the hearse. It, small floral wreath with the banner CDI Family and Mendes' Afghanistan service medal, on a cushion, were carried into the church.
As per military protocol, the honour guard carrying her casket were from her home unit, each wearing the North Star insignia that denotes military intelligence. A comrade from Afghanistan accompanied her body the entire trip, still wearing his desert camouflage uniform.
It was Mendes's sister Melissa, often confused with her lookalike sibling when the two were teenage athletes growing up near Cobourg, who delivered the most moving eulogy for the young officer to the packed church.
"It breaks my heart that my little girls will never get to know you," she told her sister's casket, her voice breaking with emotion as she remembered the pair growing up on her family's apple farm near Grafton and engaging in the usual sort of teenage rivalries with her sister that are common among young girls before they learn to appreciate one another as they grew older.
Melissa remembered how 'Mic,' as she was known to her friends, thrived in the intellectual and athletic pressure cooker of Royal Military College and how she fell in love there with soccer coach Victor Mendes, a Kingstonian whom she married after graduation.
'Mic' was immediately accepted by his family and the Portuguese community in Kingston, her sister recalled, and she said the death of the young officer had left a hole in the heart of those who knew her.
"She was so beautiful, inside and outside," Melissa said, saving her last words for her sister.
"Maj. Michelle Mendes, we salute you.
"Thank you for your service here on earth. We will always love you, until we meet you again."
Two of Mendes's classmates from RMC, Rebecca Barton and Amber Comisso, remembered her as an athletic overachiever, noting that she was the first person in the 2001 graduating class to achieve the rank of major, an appointment she earned just months before being posted to Afghanistan.
Mendes served there in 2006, but was repatriated to Canada after she was one of a number of Canadian soldiers injured in a friendly fire attack by an American jet that mistook them for enemy forces.
"We were so proud to have known her," said Barton.
"Her beautiful, brilliant smile would light up any room she was in."
Alan Okros, a friend and former military member, said the memories of Mendes will be those of someone more than just a first-rate officer.
"She was more than just a soldier," he said in his own eulogy, noted that she was remembered widely for her empathy and friendship, as well as a promising military career.
"You served your country with honour," he said.
"You served your branch with pride and you reflected your family in everything you did. Each of us is a better person for having known you."
Mendes's family has not spoken publicly since her death, but released a written statement last week thanking the public for their gestures of condolence in the week since Mendes's death.
"She was all Canadian -- proud, strong and free," her family stated.
"Michelle loved to serve. The military gave her roots and now she has wings. Her family will need those wings to push us forward through these difficult days. Maj. Michelle Mendes, we salute you.... We will always love you."