Soldiers bid farewell in Kandahar ramp ceremony

Hundreds of soldiers held a sombre ramp ceremony in Kandahar on Tuesday as the bodies of six Canadian soldiers were loaded onto aplane to begin the journey home.

A lone bagpiper played Amazing Grace as 60 pallbearers —all from the same battle group the dead soldiers had served in — slowly carried the flag-draped coffins on their shoulders.

After the ramp ceremony, the pallbearers broke into small groups away from the roughly 1,000 assembled soldiers. Some of them embraced as they wept.

The Canadianswere killed Sunday when their armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb 75 kilometres west of Kandahar City, near the border between Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Two others were injured in the attack, which happened at about 1:30 p.m. local time. One was treated and released while the other is recovering in an American military hospital in Germany.

The explosion killed Sgt. Donald Lucas, 31, Cpl. Aaron E. Williams, 23, Pte. Kevin Vincent Kennedy, 20, Pte. David Robert Greenslade, 20, Cpl. Christopher Paul Stannix, 24, and Cpl. Brent Poland, 37.

Stannix was a reservist with the Halifax-based Princess Louise Fusiliers Army Reserve Infantry Regiment. The otherswere members of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment, based in CFB Gagetown, N.B. All six were members of Hotel company.

Their bodies are due back in Canada at7:15 p.m. ET Wednesday. But a spokeswoman for the Canadian Forces said Tuesday that mediawill not be allowed to cover their arrival.

Capt. Nicole Meszaros said a couple of the families had asked that no reporters or television cameras be on the tarmac for Tuesday's ramp ceremony. Instead, the army's combat-camera arm, which shoots still photographs and video for the Forces, will be allowed to attend the event.

Meanwhile, Chief Warrant Officer Wayne O'Toole ofHotel company said the soldiers are leaning on one another for support.

"I am so damn proud right now of what I saw, the way people reacted. They're coming together, they're getting stronger," O'Toole said.

'In my view, the bad guys just got lucky'

Maj. Alex Ruff, the company commander, said he doesn't believe his troops were specifically targeted by Taliban and that the massive bomb could have killed anybody who came upon it.

"They knew we were out in the area. In my view, the bad guys just got lucky," he said.

Ruff also said he's confident ammunition inside the armoured vehicle didn't trigger a second blast because all of the LAV's supplies were accounted for. Early reports from the scene suggested there may have been more than one blast.

"There was no secondary explosion from within the vehicle," he said. "We've accounted for all the ammunition that was in the back."

Ruff was travelling in one of three LAVs working to protect a convoy travelling around a series of irrigation ditches. He said he heard the explosion as a large crackle over his radio and raced to the scene.

Soldiers in the platooncleared a landing pad for a helicopter to airlift the four surviving soldiers back to the base for medical treatment, said Ruff.

More than 2,000 Canadian soldiers are serving in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province. Fifty-one soldiers and one diplomat have died since the mission started in 2002.