A poignant story from Afganistan

From the Toronto Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060824.AFGHANCHILD24/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/

A solemn ceremony for Afghan 10-year-old
GRAEME SMITH
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The wail of bagpipes and the roar of jet engines filled the air at Kandahar airfield last night, as the Canadian military said farewell to a fallen soldier.
But silence hung over another goodbye yesterday, a smaller ceremony for a 10-year-old Afghan boy killed by a Canadian bullet.
No eulogy was spoken, and no explanation for why a soldier guarding a street in Kandahar fired at him.
There was a gesture of respect for the boy's family, however. He had spent almost 24 hours in the hands of foreigners -- first at Camp Nathan Smith, the home of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team, where he was shot about half a kilometre outside the gates, and then at the Kandahar airfield's military hospital.
After he was declared dead, he was zipped into a black body bag and laid on a stretcher.
Sergeant Paul Turner, a military bodyguard who normally guards the PRT commander, was assigned the task of loading the small corpse into a LAV-3 armoured vehicle and taking him to his family.
It could have been a crude delivery, but the Canadians wanted something more dignified. They parked the LAV outside the blue metal gates of Camp Nathan Smith, a short distance from the blue-and-silver sport-utility vehicle the boy's father intended to use as a hearse.
About a dozen Afghan police and Canadian soldiers formed two lines between the military and civilian vehicles. Soldiers saluted as the corpse was carried out of the LAV's back ramp and loaded into the SUV.
"It was a pretty sobering experience for everybody," Sgt. Turner said. "It was pretty quiet. Nobody knew what to say. I just wanted to call my own children."
The bodyguard had another reason for wanting to check on his family. He had dealt with another child victim of war the previous day, when he performed first aid on a young girl who was hit by a suicide bomb. She died shortly afterward.
That same bomb killed a Canadian soldier and resulted in the military roadblock where the 10-year-old was shot two hours later.
Sgt. Turner did eventually find a quiet moment to call home. His four children -- ages 18, 15, 9 and 6 -- are all okay, he said, although security rules prevented him from explaining to his wife all the reasons why he needed to talk. Watching that grieving father take away his son's body has left an ugly image in his mind's eye, he said, and that picture will probably stay with him forever.