In the seven months Maj. Rev. Jim Short spent in Afghanistan in 2008 he presided over the ramp ceremonies for 19 soldiers who were killed while serving there.
They are "his 19" and they are often in his thoughts.
"Probably not a day goes by that I don't think about them and what they missed, what their families have missed," he says from his office at Ladner United Church.
Short has been a Canadian Army reservist for 20 years. He's helped train, screen and counsel Canadian soldiers getting ready to deploy to a war zone. He's helped returning soldiers acclimatize back into day-to-day life at home and he's delivered the devastating news to families who have lost a loved one serving in the military.
However, for those seven months in 2008 he was on the front lines of the conflict in Afghanistan.
"I really felt called to do that," he says, adding he could not have done it without the support of his family and the congregation at Ladner United, where he's ministered since 2001.
As one of four chaplains serving in the war zone, Short was right there in the combat zone ministering to the soldiers.
He says his role as a military chaplain was to provide moral and spiritual guidance to leaders and to counsel and support the soldiers.
"(I was) helping them contend with life in a war zone."
He was the hospital chaplain and would be there to offer comfort and support to the wounded. And he was there 19 times to help send those soldiers who had made the ultimate sacrifice home.
Short, along with Ladner Legion president Jim Ingram, has organized a short ceremony for this morning to honour the Canadian military personnel killed in Afghanistan and mark the end of that mission and the transition to a smaller training force.
Beginning at 10: 15 a.m. as a prelude to the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at Memorial Park in Ladner, Short and Jen Brown, a local veteran who served at the same time in Afghanistan, will read out the names of the 157 Canadian soldiers killed during the combat mission, including former Tsawwassen resident and South Delta Secondary grad Stephan Stock, 25.
Stock, a sapper, or mine disposal expert, with 12 Field Squadron, 1 Combat Engineer Regiment based in Edmonton, was killed on Aug. 20, 2008, along with two other soldiers, when their convoy hit a roadside bomb.
As each name is read out, a local student will plant a small Canadian flag in memory at the cenotaph.
Short says he and Ingram hatched the idea for the ceremony last year and felt they wanted to do something to acknowledge those killed in Canada's more recent deployment.
