Private Patrick Lormand, aged 21 of the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment was killed and four others were injured in a roadside improvised explosive device (IED) blast approximately 13 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city. Pte. Lormand was on a patrol in the Panjwaii district in the early afternoon on Sunday, September 13 when the device blew up.
"He did not come here as a potential victim, he came here to help and help he did. He does not need to be told his efforts are futile for he could see positive results in the communities he was protecting," said an emotional Brigadier General Jonathan Vance, the commander of Task Force Kandahar.
"You need only look into those young, clear eyes to know that he was a good soul, who tried every day to do the right thing and saw in the results of his efforts a chance to succeed on a wider scale on behalf of Canadians and Afghans alike," said the Brigadier General.
"He took a fatal strike where an Afghan family might have. He lived in the community so they knew the families he was protecting and they saw him as just that – a protector," said Vance.
"Neither he nor his family benefit from uninformed opinions about what his goals were and the techniques he used to achieve them," he added. "The thousands of young, clear, determined eyes that remain wide open here in Kandahar are working hard, every day to protect and stabilize the population – not an impossible mission as some might suggest."
Governor-General Michaëlle Jean departed from the usual short statement of condolence, instead listing the concrete improvements to schools and hospitals she witnessed during a recent trip to Afghanistan.
Afghans told her “the actions of our soldiers to insure security … are helping them to move forward as they face the forces of destruction in their country.”
An emotional Governor-General told reporters in Quebec City that the soldier's death came as a terrible shock: “It was certainly a difficult day for me.”
Commanders at Pte. Lormand's base in Valcartier, near Quebec City, also held a news conference, something they rarely do to mark a soldier's death.
“I thought it was important to share with the public, but also for the garrison here, our grief with those families, to better show support and to show how much we care and how much it does also affect us,” said Colonel Jean-Marc Lanthier, commander of 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group.
“These guys cannot do their mission if the don't feel supported at home by their families.”
Lormand, or "Lorm" as his friends knew him, was well liked and his good humour and happiness was credited with raising the morale of his section and his platoon.
"His was a world where success is something won under the hardest of circumstances, where ideas are turned into action and where the Canadian forces seek to protect and stabilize," said Vance.
He had pride in his mission, said Vance, and was dedicated to his peers and to his career as an infantryman. He is survived by his parents, Jacques and Sylvie Lormand, his brother André and his girlfriend Danicka Myre.
The latest incident occurred one week after another blast hit an armoured vehicle in the same area, killing Major Yannick Pepin and Corporal Jean-Francois Drouin.
Lormand is the 12th soldier killed during the current rotation.
A few days ago, the Chief of Canada's Defence Staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk had been urging soldiers here to be careful and not to let down their guard as their tour came to an end.
The IED has become the weapon of choice for the Taliban. Seventy-one of the 130 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan have died from IED strikes. Since April of 2007 - 62 of the 85 Canadian deaths were the result of improvised explosive devices that are cheap and easy to make.
The repatriation ceremony is expected to take place at Trenton at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
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