MacKay asks military awards committee to consider change for fallen soldiers
Families protest limit on Sacrifice Medal to 'hostile action' victims
Richard Foot, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, September 19, 2008
Defence Minister Peter MacKay has intervened in the controversy surrounding a new medal for soldiers killed or injured in Afghanistan, asking a federal committee that oversees military awards to consider easing restrictions on who should receive the honour.
The families of at least 14 soldiers killed in Afghanistan are angry that their lost sons and husbands will not qualify for Canada's new military Sacrifice Medal because their deaths were not the result of "hostile action."
Of the 97 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002, about a dozen have died from vehicle rollovers, accidental shootings or other mishaps, including one soldier who fell down a village well during a night patrol.
The office of Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, which formally administers Canada's honours system, unveiled the Sacrifice Medal in August, along with eligibility criteria limiting it to military members killed or wounded since 2001 by enemy action.
Public anger over those rules erupted this week after Ben Walsh learned that his son, Master Cpl. Jeffrey Walsh, did not qualify for the honour. Walsh, 33, died in Kandahar in 2006, when he was accidentally shot by another Canadian.
Ben Walsh, who lives in Regina, helped organize an online petition to protest the rules surrounding the medal. By yesterday, the petition contained more than 2,500 names, including relatives of at least 14 soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
"I am absolutely appalled. I cannot believe that some soldiers will get this honour and others won't," says Dale Wilson, a resident of Kenora, Ont., whose son, Master Cpl. Tim Wilson, 33, died from his injuries in an armoured car crash in Kandahar in 2006.
"My son was doing his duty, operating in a combat zone. He and every other soldier killed over there in the service of their country should get the medal."
A senior member of Mr. MacKay's staff said yesterday that the defence minister believed Master Cpl. Walsh, for one, deserved the medal and had asked his department to re-examine his eligibility.
Mr. MacKay has also appealed to the honours policy committee, a multi-department board that oversees the rules for federal awards, to reconsider the rules for the Sacrifice Medal.
Any changes must be approved by a federal cabinet order and signed by the Governor General. However a spokeswoman for Ms. Jean's office said no changes to the rules were currently being considered by Rideau Hall.
Dale Wilson sent a protest letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other politicians yesterday.
"For the first time in our lives we are truly ashamed of being Canadian," the letter said. "(Tim) was sent to Afghanistan by you, executing his duties as ordered. ... Do we tell our grandson, 'Oh yes, your daddy died for the country, but he didn't qualify for the Sacrifice Medal' -- he didn't qualify -- how much more could he give!"
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008