Canadian Forces Sergeant Prescott Shipway was killed by a roadside bomb in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province last September.
Robarts Research Centre system administrator Jeff Gardiner is taking a one-year leave of absence to serve with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.
The Saskatchewan-native and father of two was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan and just a week away from returning home.
While a stranger to Jeff Gardiner, he unknowingly became one of the main reasons the Robarts Research Institute employee and navy reservist volunteered for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He leaves in August for six months.
“It has to be someone,” says the systems administrator with an imaging group at Robarts.
“I volunteered after I heard a sergeant died weeks before returning home. I thought to myself, if these guys didn’t have to do four or five missions, perhaps that guy would be home.”
Although he will not be involved in combat arms, he thought, “if I don’t stand up and try to do this some army guy is going to have to do one more tour.”
A sailor by trade, Gardiner admits it seems unusual that he would be sent to land-locked Afghanistan, surrounded by desert and mountains. There is some trepidation being a navy guy in an army environment, but knows cultural acclimatization will happen.
Gardiner will work with the International Security Assistance Force, part of the NATO component, where he will gather combat data, look at operations that have happened and summarize them.
So how does a sailor from London find his way to Afghanistan?
First off, his expertise is combat information, so he brings a skill-set the Canadian Forces can use. He also believes strongly in what the Canadian Forces are doing.
“Many people profess to value peace, equality, all Canadian values; but unless someone actually does something to bring these values to the dark places of the world, evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
“It’s not credible to simply have ideals and do nothing about it. I value these values too, except I’m going to try to make a difference where many believe no difference can be made.”
Afghanistan is not his first tour of duty. In 1989, he was a peacekeeper in the Golan Heights, north of Israel in Syria. He spent six months with the Canadian Contingent United Nations Middle East.
Gardiner says he talked with his wife Marcia about volunteering again, but the couple just recently had their second child, 11-month-old Elizabeth. They have a 12-year-old daughter Laurel.
His decision to fly the family to Tel Aviv where he will meet them for the Christmas holidays, he feels, will make the absence a bit easier.
Gardiner says Robarts has been supportive in granting a one-year leave of absence. He begins four-months of training in Kingston next month, before leaving for Afghanistan in mid-August.
So what inspires a father of two to travel almost 11,000 kilometres to spend half a year helping a community he doesn’t know?
“It doesn’t matter if I know them or not,” says Gardiner. “The women and children of Afghanistan, or any part of the world, merit an education, they deserve to live in a environment where there is electricity, clean water. The whole primary reason, even though the people are focused on the combat side of this, is the focus of reconstructing the country and training the Afghan army, such that they can provide the minimum basis of security for their own citizens.”
The first question on most people’s minds is ‘why are you motivated to do this?’.
“It’s in accordance with my ideals,” he says. “I’m not going based on other people’s attitudes. I’m going for personal reasons. I think the reaction people give you is a function of how much they’ve actually thought about why Canada is doing this.
“There are people that justifiably don’t like war, but you ask them if they have a set of ideals – like, ‘do you think women and children should receive an education?’ – and of course they do, so you pursue that. If you believe in this ideal then what are you doing to make it happen. And when people see that side of it, it challenges a visceral rejection of the combat element of why we’re there.”
Gardiner is experiencing a flood of emotions in anticipation of his deployment, but admits reality won’t really hit home until he touches down in Afghanistan.
“I think it will hit the minute you actually leave and wake up on a cot beside an airfield or whatever the case may be.”
And go he will, ready to make a contribution.
“You have to believe you can make a difference or else you won’t be motivated to make a difference,” he says. “I believe we can make a difference, be it a personal or collective difference. You have to believe that.”