I was stunned when I tripped across a newswire report on-line last night announcing the deaths of the four Canadian soliders in Afghanistan.

We haven’t lost people in action in over fifty years, and four of our people are killed by a stray bomb? A stray US bomb, at that, in an area where there shouldn’t have been one, and the pilot was told not to drop it, only to mark the spot.

Gee, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Apparently the pilot thought he was under attack and taking fire, having seen live fire on the ground where the Canadians were doing field exercises. Last I understood, “taking fire” meant taking fire. I’m fairly certain nothing was flying in the sky around the plane that was dangerous.

The pilot will have to live with this for a long time, I hope. A very, very long time. I hope he feels soul-twisting anguish daily for his leapt-to conclusion resulting in the deaths of Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green, and Pte. Nathan Smith, who will never again see their sweethearts, hand their mothers bouquets of flowers on Mothers’ Day, flip burgers with their dads at family barbecues, catch a football, or sing our national anthem.

War sucks. People leave knowing they might not come back. We watch our friends and loved ones go, knowing that it might be the last time we see them, that enemy action might mean they’ll be lost to us. To lose someone in a stupid, stupid accident – to an ally, no less – is a shocking, cold-water sort of ending to our struggle to cope with the awareness that any day we might hear that our loved one is dead. Such an ending mocks their willingness to lay their lives on the line, as well as our strength and courage to support them in that decision.

Live with that, US pilot. Live with the shame, and the guilt, and the embarrassment.