His name is Andrew Knisely and he's everything you'd want in a Canadian soldier. He's handsome, brave, well educated and more than capable. But one of the country's finest has now been forever changed by his experience fighting in Afghanistan. And his family is now in the same position as so many others have been.
Pte. Knisely is one of the local soldiers who was the focus of
CityNews anchor Gord Martineau's recent trip to Afghanistan for a special that aired during the Christmas holidays.
Andrew's family and friends in his hometown of London surprised the trooper with messages from home and the smile on his face brought a glow to their hearts as he listened to their words from so far away.
He would frequently walk the streets of Kandahar, shaking hands with the locals and trying to spread the word about Canada's real involvement in the country.
But on Monday, those same well wishers received the news they always dreaded and prayed would never come. Their son had been badly injured when what's believed to have been an improvised explosive device went off as he was on patrol in the war torn nation.
His family is devastated by the news and it makes their Yuletide pronouncements to their son painfully ironic. "As a mother I think you have to think about [the possibility of injury] and for sure I do, all the time," his mom Heather told us before the holidays. "Hoping they all come home, but we know that's not possible."
"You see the front page where somebody has been harmed over there and your heart sinks," confessed his father Ken. "And we say we expect it won't be Andrew."
But sadly, on this day, it was.
The big strapping athletic man who loves to hunt and was described as being an avid outdoorsman with a big smile of his face reportedly lost part of his right leg to the blast and there are questions about whether doctors will be able to save his right arm.
His family is soldiering on, desperately worried about their boy, who is now being tended to in Germany. It's not clear when Knisely may be able to come home to Canada, but his relatives know that despite his terrible wounds, he's still one of the lucky ones because he will eventually get to make that journey.
For the families of 107 others who have lost everything fighting the Taliban, that day will never come.