Goddard’s death not in vain: Father

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/08/2021 (1536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tim Goddard doesn’t believe his daughter died in vain.

Capt. Nichola Goddard was the first Canadian female to die in combat. Her death occurred in 2006 while she was deployed to Afghanistan. She was with the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery based in CFB Shilo. In total, 158 Canadian soldiers and seven civilians died in the 12-year conflict.

By 2011, 191 Canadian soldiers suffering from the psychological wounds from that war took their own lives.

“I think that her death was the most awful thing that happened in my life and my family’s lives,” Goddard told The Sun in a telephone interview from his home in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

“At the time, when she died, she was doing what she felt was the right thing to do. She believed in the mission.”

The two Goddards would have spirited discussions before she left for Afghanistan.

“But I always felt she believed in what she was doing and she believed in her team,” he said.

Goddard was a forward observation officer with the Orion Task Force, and was supporting a rifle company at the time of her death.

“I think that everybody who was there, they were all doing something that they believed was right, and that I believe had an impact,” her father said.

With some former Canadian soldiers who served in Afghanistan weighing in on the recent events occurring in that country and the Taliban’s takeover, the general air is one where they feel their sacrifices were for naught.

Goddard does believe the Afghan people have been abandoned by the international community and he believes his daughter would share the same sentiment.

“I think she would say how disappointed she is and angry that people were being left behind unnecessarily. Not being able to break that bureaucracy. These people are in need.”

In a Canadian Press story on Wednesday, Justin Trudeau blamed Taliban checkpoints rather than government bureaucracy and delays for what many see as the slow pace of Canada’s effort to save former Afghan interpreters and their families.

 

The Liberal leader made the comments during an election campaign event in Vancouver Wednesday as fears and frustrations mount over the fate of hundreds of Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution for their links to Canada.

A former dean of education at the University of Prince Edward Island, Tim Goddard took time from his role to work for a non-profit organization, World University Services of Canada (WUSC), which saw him working in Afghanistan after his daughter’s death in project development as a volunteer to develop programming for potential teachers in the country.

“One of the things Nichola used to say a couple of times, when we talked about her deployment to Afghanistan and the issues around that was ‘I do what I do so you can do what you do,’” Goddard recalled. “Because without having a fairly stable civil society, it’s very hard for people like me to go in and do development work.

“She was a very smart woman. It made absolute sense to me.”

Over the 12 years the Canadian military was in Afghanistan, Tim Goddard believes life improved to such a degree that there is no going back to the way it was before the Canadians came.

“The genie is out of the bottle to do with literacy, with gender equality, with women’s rights, with general life in a civil society. People got used to that,” he said.

Going back to the way life was prior to the Taliban won’t be an option any longer.

“I think there are people who have tasted those freedoms our soldiers were able to bring to them. And they aren’t willing to give them up.”

But he does worry about the people he left behind after the project was done.

The knarl of paperwork for Afghan residents applying for refugee status, which typically would be served in a peace time environment with access to the Canadian embassy, is not longer available, Goddard said. In his opinion, it is the bureaucracy that is the biggest stumbling block to getting people out of Afghanistan and into a safe environment.

“They (the Canadian government) have to understand that as Canadians, whether we are directly related to someone there, or not, we do not think it is right that people who helped us, are being abandoned.”

With a federal election just over a month away, Goddard is imploring people to get organized, talk to the government, and “get our people out! The only way to do this is through public pressure.”

“People have to keep bringing it up.”

» kkielley@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press