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Remembering the fallen

Estanislao Oziewicz, Globe & Mail, 29 Nov 06

The death of Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard will be keenly felt by Canadian troops -- he was his battalion's father figure and the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer to die so far in Afghanistan.

CWO Girouard, 46, was the Regimental Sergeant-Major of the 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, making him not only the senior chief warrant officer but also the one with the heaviest responsibilities for leadership, cohesion and morale among the battalion's soldiers.

"The regimental sergeant-major is the father of the force, if you like -- the disciplinarian, the father confessor, a whole range of roles from pope to Jesuit in the army," said Desmond Morton, a military historian at McGill University.

"He's the old man -- usually in chronological terms one of the oldest soldiers in the regiment -- and will have been very much responsible for the good welfare of the men."

The battalion's lieutenant-colonel would have been giving the orders, said David Bercuson, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, and CWO Girouard would have had the responsibility for carrying them out.

"The non-commissioned officers do. The commissioned officers think. Commissioned officers make decisions, non-commissioned officers implement their decisions," Prof. Bercuson said.

CWO Girouard, a father of three and a 29-year military veteran, was killed in a suicide bomb attack Monday along with one of his men, Corporal Albert Storm, 36, a father of two. They died during an attack on the Bison armoured personnel carrier they were in just outside Kandahar.

CWO Girouard was a native of Bathurst, N.B., and Cpl. Storm was originally from Fort Erie, Ont.

A colleague told The Canadian Press that Cpl. Storm, a decorated soldier who had served in trouble spots around the globe, was just three years

from a planned retirement. "I bought him a coffee and we talked about the past and what we had done in the past.

"We kind of reminisced a bit and he was talking about planning for his retirement," said Corporal William Guse, a medic who served with Cpl. Storm more than 14 years ago and met with him just Sunday. "He died doing what he wanted to do; he thoroughly enjoyed the army. He enjoyed it as much as he enjoyed planning for his retirement, too."