Female casualty leaves Canada with questions

When Captain Nichola Goddard was killed May 17 in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan, she became the first female Canadian soldier to die while participating in battle. Besides her husband, parents, and two sisters, she left behind an ambivalent nation.

In phone interviews, some Canadians said they view Goddard's death as the downside of gains in gender equality that have led to full integration of the military and have offered female members of the Canadian forces a place beside their male counterparts in the field. Unlike the United States, Canada does not bar women from offensive ground combat.

Others assert that while there are appropriate roles for females in the military, women shouldn't be fighting.

``In other areas, our society recognizes the differences between men and women," said Diane Watts of the conservative group Real Women of Canada, based in Ottawa. ``This is why we have different categories in sports, for example."

Goddard's death has stirred debate about the role of women in the military, just as Canada raises its profile in Afghanistan as part of NATO's takeover of military operations from a US-led force in the south.

``A lot of people don't know what to do with this," said David Bercuson, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, referring to the death.

Goddard, 26, with the First Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, was fighting to clear Taliban from an area in the southern province of Kandahar in an operation with Afghan government troops. She was killed by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade that struck her light-armored vehicle as she was directing artillery fire.

``It was quick, immediate," said her father, Tim , an associate dean of education at the University of Calgary. ``Nobody was to blame. There was a purpose to what she was doing and she believed in it. She died doing something that she loved and did well."

Canadian women gained the right to engage in offensive ground combat in 1989. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, responding to a discrimination complaint, ordered the Canadian armed forces to open all occupations to women, except aboard submarines, and to devise a plan to achieve full integration within 10 years.

Today, women make up about 15 percent of Canada's military, roughly the same as in the United States and among the highest in the world. They also are permitted to serve in submarines.

More than 7,900 women serve in the regular Canadian force, including 225 in combat units, and 4,800 in the primary reserve, with 925 of those in combat roles. Of approximately 2,300 Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan, about 230 are women. Goddard was the 16th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan.

While Goddard is certain to become a symbol of the opportunities and risks for women in the military, she did not consider herself an activist, her father said. ``She felt strongly that gender was irrelevant," he said.

Lewis MacKenzie, a retired Canadian major general who commanded United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo in 1992, said he dismisses gender as a factor in determining fitness for battle, adding that he discovered that the presence of women raised the level of bravery among both men and women. ``That removed my last doubts," he said.

Integration continues steady advances elsewhere, MacKenzie said. ``I think you are moving that way," he said, referring to the United States, ``as are the Brits."

Countries that allow women to participate in ground combat include Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden, according to Lory Manning, a retired US Navy captain and author of a study of women in the military for the Women's Research & Education Institute in Washington.

``One thing to keep in mind is that in some countries where women are allowed to serve in ground combat, few actually do," said Manning, referring to the fact that the option for them hasn't been available for long.

US women are likely to be given the option to serve in offensive ground combat someday, but probably not soon, Manning said. ``There will be a change, but it will be evolutionary," she said.

In the meantime, limiting the roles of US servicewomen has not guaranteed their safety. In Iraq, where women have been serving in combat support units, 53 have been killed, 37 by hostile fire.

``The most dangerous job today is driving a truck, and women are doing that," said Tammy Duckworth, an American who lost both legs serving as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq after a rocket-propelled grenade exploded beside her as she flew over insurgents in November 2004.

Duckworth, 38, running for Congress as a Democrat in Illinois, said that any effort to exclusively protect women is demeaning -- to men.

``I'm a little offended that we think women are more precious," she said in a phone interview.

Tim Goddard, whose daughter died on his 53d birthday, said all combat deaths hit home with devastating impact, regardless of gender. He wept as he recalled Nichola's last words , spoken during a phone call two days before the fatal mission: ``Love ya lots."

Women combat soldiers can create a local stir, as Goddard did in Afghanistan.

``The big shock was not that I was in the army, but that I was married and in the army," she wrote in an e-mail to her family before she died. ``The fact that my husband was not also a soldier was even more disturbing."

One of Goddard's e-mails addressed the difficulty and effectiveness of her mission in Afghanistan. She told how she had finished a five-hour, 2,000-foot climb to a village while lugging 100 pounds of gear.

As the coalition troops started back down the mountain, an Afghan National Army soldier approached Goddard with an interpreter. ``They want me to tell you that all of the ANA are talking about you, because you have done this march with us," the interpreter said.

Goddard replied: ``Tell him that I am talking about them, because they can run up and down the mountains."

The soldier came back and himself thanked Goddard: ``I fight Taliban. I fight Al Qaeda. You fight also."