The body of a fallen Canadian soldier from Orangeville, Ont. is making the long journey home from Afghanistan and is expected to arrive at CFB Trenton on Monday. This will be the third somber repatriation ceremony the base has had in just a little over a month after two other Canadian soldiers lost their lives on the front lines in Afghanistan last month.

Corporal Matthew McCully, 25, was killed on Friday when he stepped on a roadside bomb in the Zhari district, about 30 km east of Kandahar. McCully was a signals operator based in CFB Petawawa, which has one of the largest Canadian brigades oversees. Twenty-one of the 55 soldiers killed in combat are from that base. His fellow soldiers have fond memories of him and he was someone they looked up to, "He was a leader, athletic, a very nice man and the unit is really feeling his loss right now," said Maj. James Lambert.

"The repatriation ceremony will take place on Monday and quite frankly there was no problem finding volunteers amongst his friends to have the honour of taking him off the airplane and welcoming him back to Canada for the last time," said Col. Denis Thompson.

Eight members of McCully's squadron carried his flag-draped coffin into a Hercules aircraft on Saturday. His mother Valerie McGrady said a military funeral will be held Thursday in her son's hometown.