Taliban victory reopens wounds for Lang's family
Herald reporter was only journalist to die in two-decades-long war in Afghanistan
Michelle Lang wanted to bear witness to the progress being made for the people of Afghanistan amid a war that would cost the Herald reporter her life, say those who knew her best.
Losing her to an improvised explosive device that also killed four Canadian soldiers in the light armoured vehicle she shared with them on Jan. 30, 2009, was wrenching enough, said her then-fiancé, Michael Louie.
The lightning takeover of the country by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban this week only ripped open wounds that have never fully healed, the Calgarian said Wednesday. And the fall of Kabul would have had the same effect on Lang, said Louie, had she survived her assignment.
“She was such a strong woman, and when she went to Afghanistan she wanted to report on how things were changing, especially for women and girls. She would have been heartbroken over what's happened,” said Louie, 46.
“We've suffered from the trauma (of Lang 's death) and all of this just triggers it again.”
On that fateful day at the end of 2009, Lang had departed Camp Nathan Smith at Kandahar city for a routine patrol with nine others in the vehicle who were unaware a Taliban fighter lurked with a remote-control device ready to detonate a huge IED.
The blast flung the vehicle in the air, killing Lang, 34, along with Sgt. George Miok, 28, Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28, Pte. Garrett Chidley, 21, and Cpl. Zachery Mccormack, 21.
Four other Canadian soldiers were injured, as was Canadian diplomat Bushra Saeed-khan.
Lang was one of seven Canadian civilians and the only journalist killed in the Afghan war, while 158 Canadian soldiers died.
Thousands more troops carry the physical and mental scars of the conflict.
Louie said he and Lang discussed the dangers of reporting from Afghanistan before she left.
“Obviously, we both knew what ultimately could happen and I never stood in her way in wanting her to be her,” he said. “Being a journalist was what she was doing, and doing this assignment was what she wanted … I have to live with that for the rest of my life.”
He said Afghans, particularly females, will also pay a steep price in the years to come.
Echoing those grim sentiments was Lang 's father, Arthur, who said his daughter's sacrifice in trying to tell the stories of Afghans and the soldiers who fought for them gave the family an emotional stake in that country's future.
“I'm depressed about the situation — more than upset, just devastated,” said Lang from his home in Vancouver, where his daughter grew up.
“It all seems to have been a horrible waste … anyone who's had an investment in it like we do, especially families who have lost people, there's only one way to feel and that's horror.”
A driving motivation for his daughter's Afghan odyssey was the welfare of that country's women and girls, he said.
“That was one of her primary focuses, most definitely,” he said.
“And now I worry a lot about the people in Afghanistan, especially the females and anybody who was supportive of Western forces.”
He and his wife, Sandra, were concerned about their daughter's safety, but Lang said he was supportive of her heading to Kandahar to realize a journalistic goal, an experience that was to be a “great opportunity, an adventure.”
“It turned out to be a disaster.” A wider disaster, he said, was the “West giving up on Afghanistan. I can understand that but the way (U.S. President Joe) Biden pulled out and the way (former president Donald) Trump set it up was disgusting, as is the way the Canadian government is failing those it's leaving behind,” he added.
Catherine Lang said her niece would have been digging up uncomfortable truths about the aftermath of the Afghan war if she'd survived it, noting her tenacity in covering the Alberta health-care beat.
“That would have been (where) she'd channelled her anger and hurt — holding people to account, which she was very good at,” Lang said from her home in Victoria.
“Michelle will never come back to us, (the Taliban victory) takes me back to that whirlwind of emotions, to have it in our face of how senseless this all is.”
Michelle, she said, planned to visit and report on the Afghanistan office of Calgary-based advocacy group Women for Women in Afghanistan while in the war-torn country.
“Of course, she never made it there,” said Catherine Lang, who's taken a hand in the group's work.
“It was a way for me to deal with my grief and sense of helplessness (after her death).”
The Calgary father of a young soldier killed by a landmine in Afghanistan two months before Lang's death expressed anger over what he calls Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cavalier attitude toward Canadians who died in the war and those who survived.
Murray Marshall said western governments “betrayed” Afghanistan and the soldiers who fought there by pulling out troops.
But he said those troops have retained their honour, adding Lang can take her place with them, in her own way.
“She was brave enough to be out there to report their stories, the stories the troops wanted told,” said Marshall, whose son, Sapper Steven Marshall, 24, was killed near Kandahar on Oct. 30, 2009.