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OTTAWA – A Canadian soldier was killed during a firefight with insurgents that occurred approximately 24 kilometres west of Kandahar. The incident occurred at approximately 6:55 p.m. Kandahar time (10: 25 a.m. EDT) on 17 May. Killed was Captain Nichola Kathleen Sarah Goddard who was serving with Task Force Afghanistan as part of the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (1 PPCLI) Battle Group. Captain Goddard was stationed with the 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery in Shilo, Manitoba; her next-of-kin have been notified. The repatriation of Captain Goddard’s remains is now being planned. Capt Goddard was engaged in...

Canadian Soldier killed in AfghanistanCEFCOM NR–06.009 - May 17, 2006OTTAWA – A Canadian soldier was killed during a firefight with insurgents that occurred approximately 24 kilometres west of Kandahar. The incident occurred at approximately 6:55 p.m. Kandahar time (10: 25 a.m. EDT) on 17 May. Killed was Captain Nichola Kathleen Sarah Goddard who was serving with Task Force Afghanistan as part of the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (1 PPCLI) Battle Group. Captain Goddard was stationed with the 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery in Shilo, Manitoba; her next-of-kin have been notified. The repatriation of Captain Goddard’s remains...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canada suffered its first female combat death since the Second World War on Wednesday when a woman soldier was killed during fighting with Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, the military said. Capt. Nichola Goddard, of 1st Royal Canadian Horse Artillery based in Shilo, Man., was killed in action at 6:55 p.m., 24 kilometres west of Kandahar city, a Canadian Forces spokesman said in Kandahar. Her age and hometown were not immediately released. There has been intermittent fighting in the area since Monday between Afghan government forces and Taliban insurgents. Members of the Canadian Forces were backing...

TORONTO (CP) - A female Canadian soldier killed in combat Wednesday in Afghanistan described missing her daily Tim Hortons coffee and feeling the pride of wearing the uniform in a lengthy e-mail posted on her sister's Internet blog. In an e-mail dated early March to her younger sister Kate, Capt. Nichola Goddard recounted carrying a 45-kilogram pack uphill on a two-kilometre march, as well as other daily challenges of her role in the Afghan mission. "I feel like a poster child for why people should join the military," Goddard wrote. "It was an amazing 15 days." In her e-mail, Goddard...

TORONTO — A female Canadian soldier killed in combat Wednesday in Afghanistan described missing her daily Tim Hortons coffee and feeling the pride of wearing the uniform in a lengthy e-mail posted on her sister’s Internet blog. In an e-mail dated early March to her younger sister Kate, Capt. Nichola Goddard recounted carrying a 45-kilogram pack uphill on a two-kilometre march, as well as other daily challenges of her role in the Afghan mission. "I feel like a poster child for why people should join the military," Goddard wrote. "It was an amazing 15 days." In her e-mail, Goddard described...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The man who led Canadian troops into one of the biggest battles they've faced yet described Friday how hundreds of coalition and Afghan troops foiled insurgent fighters massing for an assault on the governor of Kandahar province, and how Capt. Nichola Goddard met her death in a Taliban ambush. "We were in the process of doing final searches in the village when one of our call signs came in 'ambush,' " said Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, commander of Task Force Orion's battle group. "A well co-ordinated Taliban ambush which unfortunately resulted in the death of one of...

An exceptional woman Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 When news broke of Canada's first female combat death last week -- that of Captain Nichola Goddard in an Afghanistan firefight -- Canadians greeted the news in a gender-neutral way. It was not a female soldier we mourned per se, but simply a soldier. The Department of National Defence's chief historian applauded this as "a reflection, really, on society saying we have accepted the implications of gender integration." I don't think that's true. Canadians accepted Captain Goddard's death without ambivalence because she was a career soldier, on...

Yawning over a woman's death WorldNetDaily May 27, 2006 By Ted Byfield © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com Canada lost its first woman soldier to enemy fire near Kandahar, Afghanistan, last week, and the unquestioning public acceptance of a female combat death was hailed by the Defense Department as indisputable evidence that the Canadian public has now acquiesced in the feminist vision of the fighting woman soldier. However, conservative columnist Barbara Kay in the National Post has not in the least acquiesced in it. While commending as heroic, "manly" and admirable the quick death from a mortar shell of Capt. Nichola Goddard...