A familiar, heart-rending ritual for Canadian military families played itself out again as six soldiers killed in a roadside bombing were repatriated to Canadian soil.
The military aircraft touched down at CFB Trenton in eastern Ontario late Sunday afternoon.
The ceremony was closed to the news media.
The bodies of Capt. Matthew Dawe, Cpl. Jordan Anderson, Pte. Lane Watkins and Pte. Cole Bartsch, Capt. Jefferson Francis and Master Cpl. Colin Bason began their journey home on Friday night, following a ramp ceremony at the airfield in Kandahar.
Along with their families, Gen. Rick Hillier, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson were present for their arrival.
Clarkson is the Colonel-in-Chief of Edmonton's 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Four of the dead -- Dawe, Anderson, Watkins and Bartsch -- were based there.
Jefferson was with the 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery at CFB Shilo, Man. while Bason was a reservist from New Westminster, B.C.
The dead soldiers' bodies were transported to Toronto for autopsies. In an evolving tradition, people stood on overpasses above the 401 highway into Toronto to pay tribute to their fallen heroes as the procession passed. Some waved Canadian flags. Four ambulances, their emergency lights flashing, were parked on one overpass.
The six men and their Afghan interpreter died Wednesday when a roadside bomb blew up their RG-31 Nyala armoured vehicle.
CTV's Paul Workman, on assignment in Kandahar, said Saturday that a Taliban official has said their people bundled four powerful anti-tank mines together.
"For the military, a couple of intriguing questions remain: When was the bomb actually planted and how was it detonated," he said.
Mere hours after the ramp ceremony, four Canadian soldiers were injured when a Taliban suicide bomber attacked their Nyala. This time, however, the Nyala kept the soldiers alive, Workman said.
On Sunday, Scott Taylor, publisher of Esprit de Corps, a military magazine, told Â鶹´«Ã½net that the military believes there wasn't much that could have been done to protect the six who died.
"We heard at the time this was one of the safer areas in the Kandahar region," he said.
The soldiers felt they had good relations with the local Afghan population in the Panjwaii district and were riding in one of Canada's safest troop transport vehicles, Taylor said.
As a result, one has to consider the attack a big setback for the mission, he said.
The attacks are part of the cat-and-mouse game between the Taliban and Canadian forces, with each side reacting to each other, he said.
The key to defeating the insurgents at the bombing game is good intelligence on where and when they are placing the bombs, "and to do that, you need the eyes and ears of the local population," Taylor said.
Some say helicopters might keep soldiers safer, but Taylor noted the Soviet Union lost more than 1,000 helicopters during their occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. However, he didn't mention the CIA was supplying the Afghan insurgents with shoulder-launched missiles.
Targeting public opinion
Several analysts think the Taliban are targeting Canadian public opinion as well as this country's soldiers.
"These guys know what they're doing," said military analyst Sunil Ram. "It is absolutely reasonable to see they're targeting our troops in an effort to shift the political discourse in this country to a withdrawal."
To date, 66 Canadian military personnel and one diplomat have died serving in Afghanistan since 2002.
"The whole nation pays attention to it and the whole nation asks, I think, in unison, 'Is this worth the cost?'" said Col. (ret'd) Michel Drapeau.
He fears rising casualties, especially in bunches like Wednesday's incident, could shift the political debate.
Instead of staying past the February 2009 deadline for the mission, there could be pressure to pull out even sooner, Drapeau said.
Near the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Kelly Oomen, who comes from a military family, found herself torn.
"It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that six soldiers are coming home and my nephew might be going there," she told Â鶹´«Ã½.
"Part of me says bring everyone home and part of me says keep going."
Stewart Brindley offered this perspective: "Well, one is unfortunate, six is unfortunate, but they're relatively small numbers compared to the value of what they are doing over there."
With a report from CTV's Roger Smith and files from The Canadian Press
