READ BONNIE TOEWS Author of Dramatic Suspense

On December 30, 2009, the same day when eight CIA operatives were killed in a suicide attack near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Canada faced the loss of its first journalist in Afghanistan along with another four Canadian soldiers. A massive improvised explosive device (IED) ripped through their steel-plated vehicle, tossing it aside to leave a massive crater in the dusty road, a thoroughfare often travelled by Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan near Kabul. 

     Journalists embedded with our troops know and understand the risks they take. Some relish the adrenalin rush of danger, but most are afraid. They learn to face their fear and live with it because they believe in the need to report what happens on the battlefield to those back home, not just to help families understand what their loved ones live through and do as part of their duty for their country but also to provide public insight. Most still hope that by helping readers better understand the war, it will bring about more realistic decision making on the home front for our armed forces are thinly stretched to meet their worldwide and national commitments. 

     Michelle Lang believed in and lived by the traditional values of journalism. She wrote with factual integrity, and had in fact already won a National Newspaper Award in 2008 for coverage of health and medical issues for the Calgary Herald. According to James Murray, a CBC reporter who had already served six months in Afghanistan, "She was the kind of journalist you would want to have here. She was kind and decent, and curious."      

      The acting commander of Task Force Kandahar said the military wanted to honor Lang in much the same way it has fallen soldiers. Col. Simon Hetherington said, "After Michelle's death, it became natural for us to think that given her personality, her dedication and her professionalism, that she should be granted some similar form of recognition," in which forward-operating bases, patrol bases and camps are named after fallen soldiers.

     In a simple but significant tribute, the military affixed a plaque to a wooden post braced with small sandbags. The memorial stands between the two media tents in the Canadian compound of Kandahar Airfield. Beneath a photo of Lang is the inscription, "In memory of Michelle Lang, journalist, Calgary Herald & Canwest, KIA 4:00 p.m. 30 Dec 2009, Kandahar city."  

     This memorial stands as a reminder to journalists covering the war of the perils that come with reporting from the front lines.