Fallen soldier’s father of two minds on U.S.’s Afghan pullout
Jim Davis and his wife, Sharon, visited Kandahar in 2008, part of a contingent of military families who wanted to see for themselves the desolate place where their loved ones had died in service to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.
One night at Kandahar Airfield, the sprawling base of operations where Canadian, U.S. and NATO troops were housed, Davis wandered away from the group to watch an American convoy as it headed out on patrol.
“I made eye contact with the lead truck, and we looked at each other, and I just sort of nodded my head and waved to him,” he recalled. “Within five minutes, I heard that there was an explosion. They drove over a mine and they were killed. I can never forget that.”
Davis, whose son Paul was a corporal in the Canadian Forces when he died in a light armoured vehicle rollover in 2006, found himself of two minds Thursday after U.S. President Joe Biden promised to finally end America’s “forever war.”
He recounted an emotional encounter with Hamid Karzai in September 2006, just six months removed from the death of his son, when the then-president of Afghanistan was invited to speak to a joint session of Parliament.
During Paul’s funeral, three Afghan ladies offered their condolences to the family through an interpreter, Davis said he told Karzai. “When I looked into their eyes, I could see pain, and
I could see broken souls. And I said: ‘Mr. President, that’s when I knew why my boy died in your country.’ And I said: ‘Mr. President, there is going to be peace in your country someday,’ ” Davis said.
“Well, I’m thinking now, if there is no peace in Afghanistan, what was the point of me saying that? Did my son die in vain?”
No, Biden all but explicitly said Wednesday as he announced a plan to begin pulling all U.S. soldiers out of Afghanistan beginning May 1, with a deadline of Sept. 11 — the 20th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
The mission accomplished what it set out to do, Biden insisted, decimating al-Qaida’s network and taking out leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Canada was an ally and partner to the United States almost
from the outset, with its 12-year presence — including 10 on the front lines of combat — costing the lives of 159 Canadian troops. Four Canadian civilians also died in Afghanistan.
Davis said: “What I like about what President Biden is doing — he says he’s co-ordinating all this with the allies, and I think that’s so important. Twenty years is a long time. And Afghanistan’s got to be able to stand on their own. The last thing I want to do is see another Canadian soldier die in Afghanistan. But we have to complete the mission.”
Davis, who has spent the past 15 years working with the Canadian military to help counsel families in their own grief, said: “My boy went to Afghanistan to make a better life for the people of Afghanistan, and I hope that the Taliban will never be able to implement their control again.”