Father chastises (Canadian PM) Harper in eulogy to dead soldier

Father chastises Harper in eulogy to dead soldier

Kerry Williamson, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Saturday, May 27, 2006

CALGARY - In an emotional eulogy for his daughter, the father of the first Canadian woman to die in combat issued a stern rebuke to Prime Minister Stephen Harper Friday, criticizing him for barring the media from his child's homecoming.

Tim Goddard, father of Capt. Nichola Goddard, said he could ''see no reason'' why media should be kept away from the ramp ceremonies at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

''I find it troubling that the privacy decision means that we are keeping the press outside the wire, where the bad guys are,'' he said during her funeral in the same church where he gave the 26-year-old away as a bride just four years ago.

''I would like to think that Nichola died to protect our freedoms, not to restrict them.''
(more)
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=d2c49ee2-692d-4d99-8b08-9f1fd0ce4cf7

Stop me if you've heard this playbook before: no press coverage of returning bodies, hide them absolutely as much as possible. You have? Yeah, I thought you have.

Would have been LBN, but I forgot to post it within the 12 hour window.

... a local peace group brought a flag-draped coffin, and placed it on the steps.

Or treat it like routine.

so that's nothing new for them...

They've been the world's foremost peacekeeping nation. Setting Korea aside, the War on Terror in Afghanistan is their first real shooting war since Hitler. It feels new to the public, and every death hurts.

Another father of a dead soldier recently criticized Harper during the eulogy for similar reasons.