The flag-draped casket containing the body of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan this week arrived on home soil Friday.
A C-130 Hercules aircraft carrying the remains of Cpl. Kevin Megeney touched down at CFB Trenton in eastern Ontario on Friday afternoon.
Megeney, a 25-year-old reservist from Stellarton, Nova Scotia was shot in the chest Tuesday while in his tent on the Kandahar base. The incident has been described as an accident.
A member of the 1st Battalion, Nova Scotia Highlanders, Megeney was described by his comrades as a trusted and reliable soldier who hoped to become a paramedic.
The military will only say his death was an accident, and no enemy action was involved. Four military investigators with the military's National Investigation Service are in Kandahar probing the death.
Most of the 10,000 soldiers at the Kandahar base are required to carry a firearm at all times. But they are supposed to keep their weapons unloaded, and keep a clip of ammunition close at hand.
"Nobody is authorized to actually load that weapon unless directed to do so by a superior in order to accomplish a specific mission," Maj. Dale MacEachern, spokesman for Task Force Afghanistan, said earlier this week.
Megeney, who was assigned as a guard at the main gate into the Kandahar base, was the 45th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002. Six of those deaths have been accidental or friendly-fire incidents.
Megeney died as Canadians began a major deployment as part of Operation Achilles in southern Afghanistan.
The British-led operation is supported by Canadian, U.S., Afghan and other coalition troops and is the alliance's largest-ever offensive in Afghanistan.
