KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Flags returned to full mast and the soldiers of Joint Task Force Afghanistan got back to the task at hand Sunday, but the hardest part was still to come for the men and women who worked most closely with Cpl. Matthew McCully.
For Pte. Daryl Janssen, a fresh-faced, 22-year-old signaller from Oakville, Ont., it will likely be the day he returns to the forward operating base at Ma'sum Ghar, the staging ground for Operation Hoover and the last place he saw his friend and fellow soldier alive.
Janssen, one of the eight members of McCully's unit who placed his flag-draped casket aboard a Hercules transport plane the night before, took time out Sunday to remember an excellent soldier with a penchant for perfection and a burning desire to do battle in Afghanistan.
"You get this assumption in your head, 'Yeah, (stuff is) going to happen, but it's not going to affect me like that,' and then you lose a buddy - it doesn't even sink in, you know?" Janssen said in an interview.
"I know when we start rolling out again, and we're at places we know where Matty would have been sitting there waiting for me, complaining about some piece of kit that he needed, and he's not there - it's just going to kill me."
McCully died Friday when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during Operation Hoover, a massive, multi-pronged offensive involving Afghan, Portuguese and Canadian forces designed to flush Taliban insurgents out of an enemy stronghold in Zhari district, north of the Arghandab River.
Like Janssen, McCully was a signals operator from 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group Headquarters and Signals Squadron based in Petawawa, Ont.
As a member of Canada's Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team, he was also part of a group of soldiers helping to develop Afghanistan's military into a cohesive unit that NATO officials hope will one day be able to provide security without the help of coalition forces.
A repatriation ceremony for McCully will likely be held Monday at CFB Trenton, according to Capt. Nicole Meszaros, public affairs officer for 8 Wing at the eastern Ontario base.
McCully was the 55th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002. His death came more than a month after Master Cpl. Anthony Klumpenhouwer of the elite special forces died April 18 in a fall from a communications tower while on surveillance duty in Kandahar city.
"Last night, we were all sitting around, we were talking about it and the truth is, Matty wanted this, he wanted to be here, he wanted to do his job. He loved it, he did," Janssen said, pausing occasionally to stare at the floor or to fight back his emotions.
"We can dwell on how upsetting the whole experience is, or we can laugh and joke . . . (but) you can tell that everybody was hurt badly. We lost a good man, a good person all around."
Janssen described McCully as a well-liked soldier with a keen sense of humour, an unabashed perfectionist who loved his work and craved the opportunity to get out and participate in Canada's effort to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"I'd say with his job, yes, he was definitely a perfectionist; it was never good enough until it was perfect," he said. "As signallers, we always have a good sense of humour. It's just our thing - the infantry takes things seriously enough for everybody."
On a Facebook page created in McCully's honour, Janssen posted a photo of a memorial at Ma'sum Ghar that was originally created as a tribute to the many Canadian soldiers who died in Operation Medusa, a massive battle in the Panjwaii district not far from where McCully was killed.
The photo depicts a rock with an inscription of remembrance that sits at the base of a massive Canadian flag comprised of thousands of red and white painted stones.
"They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old," the inscription reads. "At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them."
Another acquaintance of McCully's who left a message of tribute on the Facebook page said he'll regret never getting to know the 25-year-old, red-haired signaller as well as he could have.
"Somebody at work said if you didn't get to know McCully, you were cheated," wrote Joel Green of Ottawa, Ont.
"I only knew him well enough to know it was true, and I got cheated."
Janssen, meanwhile, said he'll press on with the job he knows he has to do, and he'll keep McCully's memory at the front of his mind for as long as he can.
"We know it's a dangerous job, we know it's a dangerous mission, (but) dwelling on it isn't going to change that, so you just do your best, you keep your eyes open and you keep your head down," he said softly.
"When something like what has happened happens, you just . . . honour Matty's memory, you know? Doing anything else would be wrong."
